Sleepers
by notmanos
Summary: An incident from Logan's past comes back to haunt him. Can he remember anything about it before it kills everyone around him?
1. Part 1

Disclaimer:The character of Logan & all X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. Bob is still mine - hands off. 

N.B.: Takes place shortly after the "X Men" movie, and "WTD". 

    SLEEPERS 

Prologue 

Siberia - 1985 

From the relative lack of blood, it was clear none of the three soldiers were killed outside. 

The blood frozen beneath a thin layer of rime on the top of the snow was just spatters, droplets like reddish black tears littering the snow in isolated patches, like tiny groupings of confetti left in the wake of a party. 

Of course, the one soldier's guts spilled out on the snow, the intestines curled up like fat grey snakes below his torso, spoiled the party atmosphere. 

Millar left to vomit, and they could all hear him barfing his guts out just around the corner of the communications shack, the technicolor yawn hitting the hard packed snow with a wet splat followed by a sound not unlike a sizzle, as it was so warm contrasted to the dick shriveling cold that it made the snow under and around it melted and steamed, before the sub - arctic air instantly froze it all again. It was so unbelievably fucking cold - in spite of the five layers of high tech clothing they all wore - that it seemed like their breath didn't just turn into white vapor but froze solid, becoming ice crystals that added to the endless sea of white. 

Kozinski took comfort in the fact that it wasn't currently snowing. The sky was nearly as white as the ground, and for the first time he understood the term "snowblind": if it wasn't for all the blood and body parts stretching out over the planes ( steppes? ), it might have been hard to tell the ground from the sky. 

Currently the extraction team was in the main encampment of the compound, which was made up of a half dozen loose shacks and quonset huts, although the compound itself was made up of a dozen or more buildings stretching out for a quarter mile on this desolate snowy plateau, where summer was when the temperatures reached a blistering two degrees below zero. It was a place fit for neither man nor beast - so of course the Russians had a major experimental base here, guarded by two hundred plus soldiers, some of the superhuman variety. That's what this whole base was about - superhumans. And it was so impossible to access that about a dozen operatives had gotten themselves killed trying to infiltrate it over the years. The Americans back at HQ were concerned that the Ruskies had gotten far ahead of them in utilizing superhuman talent out here, since they were so perfectly isolated here, in this snowy nowhere in the overall bigger icy nowhere of Siberia, there was no way they could say for sure. 

Until now. No one thought this operative would have any success - other superhumans had been sent in, others with more impressive abilities, but they always ended up slaughtered, or killed by the harsh weather before they could make it to the main encampment ( thanks to the sensors and scanners surrounding this place, no agent could ever be dropped closer than five miles out ). Kozinski had heard of this guy, some sort of amazing, kick ass operative, but he hardly sounded superhuman at all. He figured they'd get satellite confirmation of his death within two days. After all, he thought the only guy with a real chance was the one that channeled all that energy - he could wipe out enemies from a distance, and could keep himself warm. This op had no long distance powers like that. 

But of all the bodies they had spotted - and there were hundreds, although the fact that many were torn up made it look like even more - none looked like his. 

Also, the retrieval signal was valid. Meant nothing in itself - it could be a trap - but thermal and satellite imagery showed only a single living thing on the entirety of the encampment. It was unbelievable, but it didn't seem to be a falsified reading. Still, the team was prepared for an ambush, an unbelievably sophisticated trap, and Kozinski was pretty sure that was the deal here. 

But the longer he was here, and the more dead bodies they found ( and they were fucking everywhere ), the more he had to admit to himself that maybe the unimpressive mutie actually made it all the way. Holy fucking shit. 

He wished they could just get him and go. The balaclava was driving him crazy, making his face itch, but they had to keep every inch of their skin covered while they were here: it was so arctic that any exposed skin might become instantly frostbitten or at the very least severely windburned, and he knew his eyes, although protected by goggles, felt frozen solid. He could swear when he blinked, he saw ice crystals in his eyelashes. 

He shifted his gun to his opposite hand positioning, left on trigger ( he was an ambidextrous shooter ), but the gloves were so heavy he could barely feel it. Millar was still chunking, on his knees and heaving, but since he'd had to pull up his mask to do it, Kozinski wondered if he'd just given himself some frostbite as well. What kind of soldier was he if a few torn up bodies made him lose his lunch? He deserved whatever he got, the weak willed bastard. 

"Thermal signature stationary, ahead of you inside the comshack, one hundred meters," Hovitz said from his earpiece. Hovitz - the lucky shit - was back in the copter with the stationary sensor gear. 

"No movement?" There were mikes built into these masks ( he hoped they all enjoyed the sounds of Millar blowing chunks ), so they could leave their hands free, but damn it if that somehow didn't make the itching worse. As soon as he peeled this damn thing off, he was going to scrape the first layer of his skin off his face. 

"He got up while you guys were coming in, south - southwest. Judgin' from the heat registers, he threw some more fuel in the wood stove, and poured himself a cup of something hot - tea? Don't think he's a coffee guy." 

Kozinski thought he could smell burning wood, in spite of the fact that it felt like his sinus passages and lungs had been scraped raw by this lethal cold. "He knows we're here, and he's not doing anything?" 

"Affirmative. He seems to be waiting." 

"Does he know it's us?" He wasn't a psychic mutie - there was no fucking way he could know if they were friendly or hostile. 

"I don't know. But he don't seem real concerned about it." 

He had to be the stupidest thing on God's green earth. Or he had to be so confident that he could kill anything - no matter the numbers, or the weapons they were packing - that he wasn't even bothered by whatever was outside his door. He'd have to be the coldest motherfucker on Earth; arctic; sub - zero. 

He'd belong here. No wonder he survived. 

"Team A, follow me in, standard pattern," Kozinski ordered, with more confidence than he felt. "Team B, fall back pattern, Team C, flank." He waved them on and clutched his automatic rifle tightly, so much so that he could almost feel it in spite of the gloves, and moved towards the communications shack. 

Smith came forward and filled the gap left by the ailing Millar in the advance team, and Kozinski shouldered open the door of the shack, ready for anything, leading with his weapon. You didn't want to shoot your own guy, but god knows it'd happened before with muties. "Scimitar," he shouted, the code phrase that should have made him stand down, if the mutie was theirs. 

Although it looked like a clapboard shack, it was so warm in here his goggles instantly fogged up, and he had to push them  up onto his head to see. The warmth on the skin beneath his eyes was momentarily welcome, but then almost unbearably hot, and his eyes watered. It was like walking into an oven after the brutal cold outside, but he knew it was probably barely thirty two degrees in here. 

The com shack was deceptively austere and simple, a two room hut with simple wooden tables and chairs, a pot bellied wood stove, and communications equipment so sophisticated Kozinski only recognized about half of it, most of which was piled up on a long table on the right side of the main room. He spotted the splashes of blood on the walls and floor, indicating the soldiers found right outside had been killed in here, the blood dried to a crusty brown by the heat. 

The man was sitting at the table in the center of the room, closest to the stove, his chair canted back on its rear legs, his feet propped up on the table. He was wearing one of those big, thick Russian soldier's parka with the fur lined hoods, smoking a cigar and holding a mug of coffee ( Hovitz had been wrong ). 

The man glanced at him with hard blue eyes, his expression completely bored, as if there weren't ten highly trained Black Ops soldiers aiming anti - personnel weapons at him. He put his mug down on the table, blew out a stream of cigar smoke, and drawled, "What took you guys so long? I've been here for two days." 

Kozinski stared at the man, unsure if he was their guy. But he had a Canadian accent, didn't he? Still, how could he be this blasé, this cool? "Wolverine?" He said, only for confirmation. They only ever knew the muties by their code names. 

The man stood, and his officers tensed behind him, shifted their aim to cover the man more completely. But agent Wolverine grinned, a hard, blade sharp smile that reflected with sadistic glee in his piercing, dead eyes. Kozinski suddenly knew what he was thinking  - "I could take you all, and go back to my coffee". He wasn't scared at all, he wasn't concerned; he thought it was funny. He was a complete psychopath; crazier than a shithouse rat in July. No wonder he survived and completed the mission. "No, Nancy Reagan. Who the fuck do you think, grunt?"  He reached into the pocket of his snow white parka ( arctic camouflage - which begged the question how did he see those soldiers before he ripped out their guts and left a violent stain? ), and Kozinski motioned for his men to stand down, although he kept his gun casually fixed on him, in case the mutie really was going for a weapon. 

But Wolverine pulled out a thick black square, about the size of his hand, and held it up like it it was self - explanatory. "Got all their data, including the stuff they tried to hide as personnel files. Can we go now? I need a beer." 

The fucker was nuts. "Bastion, we have recovered the package intact," he said into his mike, lowering his weapon. "Area clear - request immediate extraction." 

"Affirmative," Hovitz replied in his earpiece. "Coming in to the main compound, e.t.a sixty eight seconds." 

As far as Kozinski was concerned, the chopper couldn't come in fast enough. He was sure, as unimpressive as this mutie bastard seemed, he was the most singularly dangerous mutant he had ever met in his life. 

And God help them all if he ever snapped his tether. 

*** 

Somewhere in Washington D.C. - Now 

    Sloane paged through the hidden files, wondering what the Organization was trying to hide from one of its most loyal operatives. 

Of course she was a mutant operative, and that made her instantly suspect, but still how long had she worked for them? Twenty two years? Didn't she deserve a little credit? 

Okay, when she used her mutation she was immune to the mind probes, and if that wasn't suspect, nothing was. But she had to, otherwise they'd have discovered how the mutants working voluntarily for the Org - pretending to believe their bullshit about quietly promoting a "mutant agenda" while quieting the "bad apples" ( they loved to put metaphors in a blender and see what happened ) - had a little agenda all their own. Did they really believe all the telepaths had been completely corrupted by their big gun telepath? They knew, damn it; they all knew the truth. The mundanes - the Humans - had their truth, and the mutants had theirs. 

But if the Humans knew they knew, they'd probably try and kill them all. Try being the operative word. 

She sat alone in the darkened basement of what was supposedly ( on the outside ) a copy shop,one ear listening for anyone who might drop by unexpectedly, while she had an earphone plugged into her other ear, listening to Radiohead. 

"Pull me out of the air crash," she whisper sang, as she started decrypting documents. "Pull me out of the lake. 'Cause I'm your super hero. We are standing on the edge." 

The first unencrypted documents didn't surprise her much. They seemed to concern the "rogue operative" Wolverine, who had been a very hot topic since it was discovered he was really and truly alive. That wasn't a surprise to her; she'd been his partner on several missions; she knew damn well killing him was almost impossible. She was pretty sure he'd have to take a tactical nuclear strike face on before he'd kick that great, glorious bucket. That's why they wanted him for the adamantium bonding process, wasn't it? It wouldn't kill him; hell, it wouldn't even slow him down. She had no idea he hadn't volunteered for the thing, not at first; eventually she figured it out. 

Was that really a recent picture of him? She studied the thumbnail portrait carefully, enlarging it until it pixilated. Yes, a recent photo: his facial hair had changed some, his eyes looked greener, but it was Wolverine all right, and he hadn't aged a day. Not a single day in ... holy shit, how many years? As long as she had known him - twenty two years. Incredible. She knew his healing factor could do things like that - she'd heard people say he'd been with an espionage group that eventually mutated ( ha!) into the Organization back in the '60's, and someone had it on good authority he fought for the Allies in Europe back in World War Two ( oh, come on! They could pull the other one ... ) - but he either had no idea how old he was or played it cagey. From what she'd heard of the telepaths who'd fucked with his head, to make him a good and compliant operative for the Org, she supposed he really did have no idea. And if the Organization had some huge master file on him, containing his real name and his real age, she had never seen it, or even heard rumors of its existence. 

Poor man. She knew she shouldn't have a soft spot for him, but she kind of did, even after all this time. He was good in bed and had a really impressive body, which always rated high in her book, but he also kicked serious ass. And unlike others she had been partnered with over the years, he didn't panic when the shit hit the fan and everything went fubar; Wolverine never panicked. Either he gave into that psychotic rage that terrified people even in the upper echelon of the Org, or he played it cool and bided his time, waiting for his best chance to accomplish whatever he decided to do. He was very, very good. The best, in all honesty. 

Which is why she figured he hadn't died at Alkali Lake, but escaped. In her estimation, as soon as the telepathic imprinting began to fail, it was only a matter of time. They had few options: either break him truly and finally, for all time ( which had been done, apparently - several times. He even seemed to heal from that ); find some super duper headfucker to do it all good and proper once and for all ( those types were really hard to recruit, with the added snag that the Org was generally terrified of them ); attempt to scramble his brains and hope enough of the autonomic functions were left to make him a sort of zombie operative ( not possible, and not a really good idea either way - part of Wolverine's great talent was not only was he extremely vicious, but he was also very clever. He sometimes played the stupid thug, but anyone who had ever been on a mission with him quickly discovered that was his cover identity ); or simply kill him, which was a difficult prospect but not impossible. But from a fiscal point of view it was impossible - how much did adamantium cost? And who the hell else could they get for a project like that? They'd tried others before Wolverine, and tried some after, albeit in a less extensive way. So far, almost no one had survived the procedure or the bonding process, and no one could undergo the extensive alterations that Wolverine had and live. A few minor cases had been done here and there, but she didn't know if any of them were still alive. Well ... no, there was that one at the very least ... there had been two, but Shrike had gone off the deep end and got himself killed. But then again, Shrike had always been mentally unstable; a couple of telepaths had slapped a warning about that on his file, but nobody of any merit took them seriously. 

God, what a fruit basket he had been. She was glad he was dead. 

Strangely though, she was secretly glad Wolverine wasn't dead. Logan was his name, right? He had been her favorite partner - she knew he'd never chicken out, never get shot in the head, dumped in a river, and leave her on her own. Okay, that had happened, but he climbed out of the river so motherfucking enraged the assholes who thought they did him pissed their pants as soon as they saw the look in the ( supposed ) dead man's eyes. As if coming back from the dead hadn't been bad enough, they now got to witness the special hate of a man confronting his would be murderers. It wasn't pretty. It still made her laugh thinking about it. When they created bad asses, the Organization broke the mold with Wolverine. She wondered if that was still true. From what she'd heard of failed attempts to contain him, it was. 

She caught her reflection off the computer screen, and pushed a strand of her short red hair back behind her ear as she studied her own face. Whereas age had been kind to Wolverine, it hadn't been quite as hands off with her. She was forty seven, and maybe she told herself she looked thirty and felt twenty, it wasn't exactly the truth. She didn't look forty - oh, no way! Her mutant genes had been good to her there - but she didn't look like her fresh faced twenty five year old self either. She could see fine lines starting to gather in the corner of her odd eyes - odd because they appeared to be completely cataracted over, orbs of pure white in her sockets. But she wasn't blind, and they weren't cataracts:her pupils were white, as were her irises; they were in there somewhere. Just an oddity of mutation, her most visible one - she learned a long time ago to always wear dark glasses in public. But if people saw her eyes more often, they'd see the lines that time was starting to leave on her, no matter how fit she was, no matter how young she seemed. She frowned at her reflection to see if she had laugh lines too. No, it didn't look it; but then again, how often had she laughed? Her life was hardly a laugh riot. 

If she had a line for everyone she had ever killed, she'd look like a prune. 

Sloane shook herself out of her momentary state of vanity, and concentrated on the files. She wasn't too interested in Logan - yes yes, Upstate New York, possible connections to a dangerously powered telepath, yada yada yada - but there were some assorted photos of other potential mutants he had been seen with. Identified: Scott Summers, who had briefly been in the Organizations hands ( she still didn't understand how he got out - no one did. It was the weirdest thing - all the soldiers in the support unit with Cyclops - who didn't end up dead ( when the telepathic blocks fell, he shot about a half dozen choppers out of the sky ) - seemed to have the worse case of amnesia anyone had ever seen; the telepaths said there were no memories to recover, none. It was like they hadn't been erased, but hadn't even existed in the first place ... ), supposedly a teacher at a suspect private school; Doctor Jean Grey, a known mutant rights activist, and also affiliated with this "school"; and the dangerous telepath in question, Professor Charles Xavier, owner of the school. Two women - a teenager and a white haired black woman - remained unidentified, but were most likely mutants as well. Cyclops was a known quantity and could be handled, but Xavier seemed to make everyone nervous. He was a strong enough telepath that he could turn an entire unit against one another, and while he could be neutralized, it would take careful planning. And then there was Wolverine himself, who could be neutralized for a while, but the problem was getting him in the first place ( no one wanted to deal head on with an angry Wolverine - no one ) and then in keeping him contained. Getting him in a box could be done; keeping him in it was the tricky part. 

Then there was the curious case of the extremely good looking man who only appeared in a single telephoto shot ( but in no close ups, and no one could ever remember actually seeing him ). His eyes were an unreal shade of blue, possibly suggesting mutantism ... but why was he so damn elusive, and a natural at not showing up on camera or even in a person's memory ? And the photo couldn't be matched to anything in the files. There was a general belief he was a telepath too, even more powerful than Xavier - powerful enough to erase his own existence. Now him - whoever he was ( his unofficial designation was "Pretty Boy", for obvious reasons ) - he made the guys in Spec Ops wet their pants. Xavier could be dealt with ... but this guy? No idea - no clue. He was the real spanner in the works. 

There were no plans to move in on them yet - well, not in this file - and the next files seemed unrelated, except for a reference to '85 Siberia, and an operation called Sleeper. Which was funny, because that operation was called Lost Cause ( because so many operatives had died trying to implement it ). She could remember when Wolverine was told he was going in ( he hadn't been given a choice ), and he didn't seem at all concerned.  The last thing he said to her was, "Back in three days." 

The funny thing was that was true. He was back in three days, mission accomplished. After that, the upper echelon seemed to  treat him with something like awe, tempered with huge buckets full of fear. She'd heard rumblings he'd only been sent to see if he could actually be killed - almost no one thought he had a chance to succeed where so many others had failed. 

Logan himself hadn't known much about what he'd accomplished. He told her it was some secret mutant experimentation base, but he hadn't seen any mutants, except those helping guard the base; mostly it was just soldiers and white coats ( doctors ). And what he was able too pull from their databases was mostly encrypted, and he had no desire to decrypt it, even though he admitted he had "lots of time to kill" once he completed his mission. 

She did kind of miss him. None of her partners since had ever been as simply competent as he was, and his unwavering confidence in his abilities rubbed off on you after a while. His refusal to worry about anything had left her with a nonchalant attitude towards life that seemed to impress the newbies, but as cool as they thought she was, she knew she had just borrowed it. 

Did he remember her? She knew his memory had been wiped ( again ) before the Alkali Lake thing, because the telepathic blocks had broken down ( again ), so probably not. A shame - although if she ever encountered him on the street, he might assume she had hostile intent, and although she was stronger than your average person, she had no desire to fight him: he was just too strong, and too damn good at the whole fighting thing. Operation Lost Cause proved that if nothing else. 

Sloane intended to skim the files, but the name change - from Lost Cause to Sleeper - intrigued her. They usually didn't change an operation's name, not even after the fact ... and that's when she realized it was the true operation - Lost Cause had been a cover. 

The more she read, the more she got a really bad feeling that ate at her stomach like acid. Holy shit ... was this end game? 

That was her true reason for searching the files - the underground was concerned that the mundanes in the Org had a failsafe in place, in case they did rise up against them or try to overthrow them. She had no idea the plan went so far back. 

How advanced was it? 

There were some documents missing, and a lot of this was coded, but she had seen enough. She plugged in the drive and started to copy all of it to disk. 

She knew if they caught her she was dead, and she might never see it coming. Sloane knew they were experimenting with lethal implants, and she had once dug one out of herself; supposedly it had been a "chemical warfare inoculation", but she knew better. She had no idea if she'd been given a second one, but she didn't think so. Her mutant abilities could make remote detonation impossible. 

At first, she thought her ability was the most useless thing ever created. She could mentally project a field that interfered with the signals of everything, from radios to televisions to security cameras to MRIs to cell phones, and she was given the lamest code name ever: Static. But she discovered by accident that her power didn't only work on machines - it worked on telepaths too. That made her a very valuable commodity to the Org, because not only could she prevent enemy troops from calling for help through mechanical means, but she could stop them from doing it by telepathic means as well. That's why she and Wolverine were often a team - he was the offensive weapon, and she was the defensive one. Yin and yang in the Black Ops world. 

Idly, she noticed her name mentioned in the strike plan against Xavier. Yes, that made sense - she could neutralize his telepathy quite easily, no matter how powerful he was. But would she hurt a friend of Logan's? 

She was not stupid enough to believe in such a childish thing as love; that was for people who didn't dwell in the real world. But she did like Logan, and respected him, and that in itself was rare - people seemed to go out of their way to give you reasons not to think much of them. She could count on one hand the people she respected at the end of the day. Maybe he did escape and go rogue, but he had never been fairly recruited in the first place. And maybe he didn't buy the mutant agenda she and the group were promoting, but she was not so much a fanatic that she would go along with brainwashing to make him agree, no matter how much they needed a man of his talents. Yes, he would be a great weapon in their stable, but she was not prepared to hurt him like the mundanes did to get him to fall into line. The fact that he refused to fall into line - any line - was one of Logan's greatest charms. He was an endearing pigheaded bastard. 

Sometimes she wondered about the others. Yes, the more powerful the mutants on their side the better, but since when was brainwashing and coercing them the right idea? Didn't that make them as bad as these mundanes? 

Out of his mind or not, maybe Logan had the right idea - maybe escape was the best answer. 

Continuing to sift through the documents, she noticed an odd code near the bottom of one file, familiar and yet seemingly out of place. She stared at it for a long time before it slowly dawned on her - Phantom. That was the special code phrase and lexicon of Reaper. 

No way. No fucking way! Had he sold them out? No ... this had to be a ploy, something he was playing along with ... right? 

She stared at it for the longest time, wondering who was really playing who. There came a point when there were so many double crosses and so many counterplots it became impossible to keep track of everything without a scorecard. 

But what if he was selling them out to save his own ass, or position himself as the ultimate power? Would it really surprise her? 

There was the bleep of a full disk, so she quickly pulled it out of the drive and inserted another, as she had a couple of megabytes of files to go. She looked at the disk speculatively before putting it in the inside pocket of her coat. Her abilities had been known to interfere with recordings on computer disks and CD - ROMs, so she had to be careful using her "static"  
while carrying these. How funny would it be to get all this info, and then accidentally erase it? 

As burning continued, she mentally combed her list of people she could trust. Reaper, ironically, had been on it. Did that throw the entire list out the window? Yes, she guessed it did. She could trust no one if there was something else going on, and they didn't trust her with the details of it. 

But there was one person left on the list, wasn't there? The one person who had been on the top of her list until he went away. 

As she pocketed the second disk, she wondered if Logan would be glad to see her, or try to kill her on sight. 


	2. Part 2

1 

    Jean held the blouse up in front of herself as she looked in the mirror. It was a bright royal blue, with a deep but still relatively demur v - neck, and black buttons that could have been carved from onyx. "It's pretty," Ororo said, looking over her shoulder. 

Jean frowned at her own reflection. "It is," she agreed, turning back towards the rack of similar designed silk blouses. "But it's too frilly and too .. young for me. And it makes me look pale." 

"You are pale," Ororo countered, giving her a sly smile. 

Jean hung it back on its rack with a heavy sigh. "Thanks for the agreement." They were the only customers in the boutique now, save for a young woman who disappeared into the changing rooms with an armful of clothes ten minutes ago and had yet to come out. Jean didn't try to pry, but she was able to pick up empathically that the girl was a nervous wreck, and thought she looked hideous in everything. She knew the feeling. 

"And what was that "too young" crack?" Ororo continued, looking at a neighboring rack of shirts that looked more like scarves. To say they were tiny and made of scant material would be frighteningly redundant. She tried to imagine a situation where she would squeeze into a handkerchief like that, and couldn't, but Ororo was looking at them with definite interest. Then again, she had the kind of chest that would look good with ( theoretical ) shirts like those. "Are you suddenly a decrepit old woman?" 

"There's no suddenly about it," she sighed, giving up on the silk shirts. The next rack over had prim white blouses, suitable for work, and that made her instantly feel very depressed. She didn't want to wear shirts like those. "I am a school marm." 

Ororo laughed, taking a good hard look at a blue paisley scarf ( shirt ) with those long, drapey sleeves that she always found wildly impractical. "At least you're not a spinster school marm." 

"No, I'm almost married," she said, looking at the prim white blouses with their proper lace trim and pearl like buttons, and loathed them with a passion. 

She noticed that Ororo was staring at her out of the corner of her eye, and looked at her. "What?" 

"You say that like it means almost dead." 

"No I didn't." But even as she denied it, didn't she think ... just a little ... she shook her head at her own thoughts. "I didn't mean it like that." 

"Are you sure?" Ororo was looking at her skeptically, and Jean quickly pretended to be fascinated by the microscopic skirts hanging on another circular rack farther away, out of her direct line of vision. 

"Of course I'm sure - what kind of question is that?" 

She pretended to look through the leather and suede minis as if actually interested, so she didn't have to look at Ororo as she came over. "A good one." She lowered her voice to a whisper as she said, "Jean, you're my friend, and so is Scott. And no matter how you both try and hide it, I know there's something wrong." 

Jean shook her head, looking at a blue suede skirt that really was very nice. Too bad it was so short. She could never get away with wearing something this skimpy ... could she? "Nothing's wrong. It's just ... couples go through peaks and valleys, that's all. We're in a valley right now." 

"Not a canyon?" 

She smirked at her sourly, not appreciating the humor, and wondered if she'd ever be able to tell someone what was wrong when she didn't actually know herself. This felt like some awful cliche: physician, heal thyself. But if it was only a physical problem - a broken arm, a case of food poisoning - she could deal with it. But it wasn't something nearly that easy. Something had happened between her and Scott, and she didn't know what; they were growing apart, moving away from each other, and she didn't understand how or why it was happening. She wanted to stop it, go back to the way things were. And yet there were some mornings when she looked over at Scott's sleeping form and wondered what she ever saw in him. She now wondered if he ever felt that way about her. 

Maybe they had always been doomed. She was older than him - not by much, but still - and he'd had almost no romantic experience at all when she met him; hell, he'd only ever been on two dates, and while he'd never said it, she was pretty sure he was still a virgin. It was his self -consciousness over his mutation that made him keep people at arm's length - Scott's greatest fear was that he would accidentally kill someone by looking at them - although with her and the Professor's help, he seemed to have opened up a bit more, let people get closer to him, and certainly he had grown more confident, by leaps and bounds. She always found his awkward innocence endearing, just like he seemed to find her "worldliness" fascinating. He seemed perfect; he should have been enough. So why wasn't he? What was wrong with her? 

He was handsome; he was caring; he was polite; he was faithful; he was reliable; his mind was a quiet retreat; he was safe. So what was the problem? 

"We're fine, Ororo," she lied, putting the skirt back on the rack. "Things have just been really strange lately." 

"Well, I can't argue with that." She wandered over to another rack to look, giving Jean a moment's peace. 

This trendy little clothing boutique was more Ororo's style than hers - when was the last time she bought something here? It always smelled of potpourri and seemed to have some New Age music playing very quietly in the background ( today it was Enya - or was it Clannad? Something like that ), and it seemed too precious somehow. The fact that it mostly carried clothing she couldn't imagine wearing was just another problem. 

Light flooded in through the store's plate glass window, giving everything a golden glow that just seemed to emphasize the rarefied air of the place, and she wandered the narrow aisles of the place, feeling more lost than ever.  What was her problem? 

It didn't help that she and Scott had bit of a dust up this morning. She made the mistake of telling him how much she missed that feeling of Camaxtli's protection, just because the feeling of power she had was incredible - she'd never picked up a car before! And it wasn't hard at all; there was no sense of strain or exertion - it was like lifting a feather. Bob had been right about it: the feel of power was incredible, intense, sexual, orgasmic; something like ecstasy and adrenaline all rolled into one concentrated shot. She missed it; she wanted to feel that kind of raw power again. 

Scott stared at her over the breakfast table, mouth hanging open in shock, and then finally found the ability to say, "Are you insane?" 

That wasn't a good way to start a conversation with your fiancee. She was sure even Scott knew that, if only in retrospect. 

Okay, so Scott didn't like the addition of Camaxtli's power - his optic beams were so powerful he could barely contain them, and nearly put himself through a wall using them. She could see why that wasn't such a good thing from his perspective. But couldn't he see why what happened to her wasn't a bad thing? 

She couldn't talk to Rogue, Bobby, or Kitty about it, and Storm had been left behind, so there was no one she could talk to this about at all. Well, she had discussed it - after a fashion - with the Professor, who suggested she talk it over with Scott. "You're starting to bottle things up, Jean," he had told her telepathically. "I don't need to tell you that isn't healthy." 

No, of course it wasn't healthy, but Scott apparently didn't even want to know. So who else was she going to talk to? Who else could understand the dark, seductive allure of that much power? Of the knowledge that you could, with a flick of your hand, make everyone disappear? That with nothing more than a minimum of effort you could make all your enemies ( and problems ) go away? 

She thought sourly "Magneto". Which isn't what she wanted at all. She didn't want to actually do it, it was just ... god, the power. That kind of strength was just mind blowing. She could talk to Bob about it, but something about him made her nervous. So who did that leave? 

Logan? He didn't have that kind of power, although he was physically strong, and everyone knew he could wipe anyone out with a simple flick of his wrist. But he had channeled Bob's power, didn't he? If you believed Bob, he saved the world with it - he wasn't under the protection of a god, he really had its power. What must that have been like? He never talked about it, but since when did he talk about anything? She really had to talk to him while he was still at the mansion. 

She was gazing in stark wonder at a bright magenta blouse - okay, who would wear that, and was being color blind the only reason to do so? - when she felt the strangest sensation. It wasn't like telepathy - not exactly - but it was a feeling like ... like what? It was like the equivalent of a burst of static while tuning between radio stations. 

She rubbed her forehead - it didn't hurt, but it wasn't exactly a comfortable feeling - when Ororo asked, "Is something wrong?" 

"Did you feel that?" 

"What?" 

So it only affected telepaths. What the hell had that been? 

It was then that the front window shattered, sending glass shards flying throughout the tiny store, and even as she ducked on reflex, Jean immediately called up her telekinesis and tried to channel the glass, sending it harmlessly into the nearest racks of clothes. But she was put off her game by the sight of what had broken the window - a woman. 

A tall, lean woman in casual clothes, jeans and an old white t - shirt advertising the band Joy Division, stumbling about on rubbery legs, possibly due to the fact that she was bleeding copiously from a wound to her neck. She looked at her, and Jean was taken aback to see she was blind - her eyes were pure white - but at the same time she realized that no, while she looked blind, she was clearly seeing her perfectly. "Jean Grey?" She said, then collapsed to her knees on the carpet. 

Ororo had immediately gone to the remains of the window to see if there was anyone immediately pursuing her ( obviously not, or she would have said something ) , and jean shouted to the flabbergasted woman behind the counter, "Call 911!" But even as she went to the woman, she knew it was probably too late - that was arterial spray; a major artery had been cut open. She was probably lucky to still be conscious. 

As she knelt beside her, she tried to use her telekinesis to staunch the wound, which, up close, looked impossibly bad. She hadn't been cut by glass; either she had been shot, or something inside her throat had exploded, leaving a lethal wound and ragged flesh behind. The redheaded woman looked up at her with blind eyes, her skin rapidly paling to the same color, and said, "Second implant. Should have known they'd have compensated for me ... " 

"What?" Considering she was bleeding to death, she wasn't necessarily going to be very coherent. 

She dug in the pocket of her leather coat, collapsing backwards, but Jean caught her, propped her up on her own knees as she put a hand over the wound on her throat. It would be no more effective than her telekinesis in trying to stop the flow of blood, but she had to try. The irony was, she could stop the blood flow with her powers, but to do so would have killed her just as surely as this wound was. There'd been too much damage for her to telekinetically fix so fast. "Give - give these to Logan," the woman said, holding up two computer discs now stained with her own blood. 

The mention of his name shocked her. "You know Logan?" 

"He has to - " she said, and then Jean felt her sag heavily against her, the strength that kept her going finally running out; even the blood seemed to stop trying to squirt out from between her fingers. The disks fell from her limp hand and landed in a pool of blood. 

Ororo came over, a  hand clamped over her mouth, blue eyes wide with horror. "Is she - ?" 

"Yes," Jean said, trying to set aside the cold feeling that had just swept over her like an arctic tide. She'd been trying to scan the woman's mind, just in time to feel her die. Oh god, how horrible was that feeling? So cold ... god, so very cold, empty, dark ... she tried to set it aside, swallowing back tears and bile, and concentrated on telekinetically keeping the woman's heart beating. 

She looked with bleary eyes at the disks floating on the puddle of blood, and wondered what could be on them that was worth dying for. 

2 

    Logan was in the gym with Kitty when they got back to the mansion. 

Ever since the Fenrir thing, Kitty was more convinced than ever she needed to know something about defending herself, beyond being able to simply phase out. Scott had offered to teach her, but no, she - like most of the others - took Logan's basic brutality to mean he was the better fighter. And okay, maybe he seemed to know every martial art known to man, including a few that no one knew existed, but that didn't make him the better fighter. It just made him different. But even the Professor got him to admit Logan probably had more hand to hand combat experience than he did - the one thing about his mutation is that he didn't get many opportunities to do close quarters fighting: he could generally put someone through a wall before they got within ten feet of him. 

Scott wished he could have remained with Jean rather than be errand boy; she was so shaken, so pale. Why wouldn't she be? She just had a woman die not only in her arms but in her mind. Yet he couldn't help her there - the Professor was trying to comfort her as only telepaths could, and that left him out of the loop. So he offered to go get Logan if only to give himself something constructive to do. 

He had seen the woman -  they'd brought her back here since she was not only a mutant but a murdered one ( and god knew the local cops were certainly eager to investigate any mutant murders ... sure they were; just like they were ready to admit they had a couple of bad cops on the force. Yeah, right.  ), and Scott had been stunned by the resemblance of the dead woman to Jean. Her hair was cut differently, much shorter, and was a slightly brighter red, but there was an uncanny resemblance, white eyes aside. It was chilling to look at her; for a moment he could imagine it was Jean, and it was like a ghost walked over his grave. Storm had taken the computer disks she had given them to clean them up and see what was on them; he envied her that job, but since she looked pretty shaken up too, he wasn't about to insist he could do that. 

As he came in, Kitty dodged a blow that Logan threw, and let out a yelp of surprise as he followed up with a second sweeping jab from the left. She phased out and went right through him as he was in the full arc of the swing, and he stumbled forward, his weight committed so much to the punch that he was thrown off balance by her sudden disappearance. "Good," Logan barked, instantly turning to face her as she phased back in a couple of feet behind him. "But you should have went solid sooner, and kicked me in the back of the knee." 

"Kick you?" She said, with a comically horrified expression on her face. 

Logan smirked, and said, "Hey, come on, no fear. No matter how big and nasty your opponent, the back of the knee is a weak point. What are the others?" 

"Eyes, throat, groin, solar plexus," she recited, and Scott shuddered to think what Logan was actually teaching her. 

He nodded. "Right. If you get the chance to take your enemy off his feet, do it, and once he's down, keep 'im down. And never give 'em a chance to breathe - you get a hit, capitalize on it instantly. Don't give 'em time to recover." He started to undo the velcro closures on the thickly padded, black fingerless gloves he wore ( well, with all that adamantium in his body, even a careless slap could break a bone on someone else ), and told Kitty, "We're done for now. Good job; yer getting better." 

She nodded, then glanced nervously at Scott, giving him a nod of acknowledgment as Logan held open the ropes of the sparring ring  so she could climb out. She could have phased, but maybe she'd done that enough for now. 

Kitty walked past him, giving him a small smile, and as soon as the door closed behind him, Logan asked, "Why do I smell blood on you? What'd I miss?" 

Scott knew he didn't smell blood, and quickly looked down at himself. Eventually he found a tiny spot of blood - a pinprick really - on the collar of his shirt. Wow - that really was a sensitive nose. "Do you know any red haired mutants with white eyes?" 

He stared at him, but Scott wasn't sure if it was from shock or simply surprise at such a question. "No. What the fuck is this about?" 

Logan climbed out of the sparring ring himself, and while Scott was glad he bothered to wear a shirt ( but of course it had to be a tight white tank top that was almost too small for him, and showed off every single muscle he had in his torso - Scott was sure he did that on purpose. But who was he trying to impress? ), he noticed with a grimace that he was barefoot still. He hated that, especially in the gym ( it was so unhygienic ), but Logan claimed he got "better traction" barefoot. Sometimes the man was barely above an animal. 

"Jean and Ororo encountered a mutant who seemed to know you in town." 

He finished stripping off the gloves and tossed them back inside the ring behind him ( he didn't even look to see if he had hit it. He had, dead center, but that wasn't the point ). "Did she hurt them?" 

"No - she got killed." 

That made Logan stare at him intensely, his eyes narrowing as if he was ready to race out and do battle. "They killed her?" 

"No, someone else did. Jean tried to save her and she couldn't; she's pretty shaken up about it." 

Something like concern crossed Logan's face. "Is she - are they hurt?" 

He wasn't sure which "she" he meant, but he could guess, and he didn't like it. "No. There was no fight. Jean thinks she might have been killed by a sniper shot or some kind of implant; she's going to study her wound in the med lab to find out." 

"Is that where she is?" He asked, walking past him out the door. Scott instantly followed, wondering why he just felt like hauling off and punching him. Sometimes Logan just made him feel that way, and he loathed him for it. 

"Yeah, downstairs." 

"Did they get a name? This woman? Did she say how she knew me?" 

"No. But she wanted Jean to give you some computer disks." 

That made Logan stop, and when he turned to look at him, Scott was surprised at how dark and intense his look was. "What? Why? What's on them?" 

"Ororo hasn't cleaned them up enough to see yet." 

"Cleaned them up?" He repeated, brow furrowing in consternation. But then he guessed, "Blood?" 

Scott just nodded. There was no need to elaborate. 

They rode the elevator down to the lower floors in silence, although he couldn't help but notice Logan clenching and unclenching his fists -  a nervous habit? Maybe he always wanted to pop his claws when things happened that he couldn't understand. Violence was his answer to everything. 

As the elevator doors opened, Logan asked, "Can I see her?" 

It took Scott a moment to realize who he was talking about. "The dead woman?" 

Logan nodded, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He didn't want to see her, but he had to see her - a  paradoxical feeling  
Scott knew all too well. For a second - a very brief second - he almost felt sorry for Logan. But it passed quickly. 

"Sure, but it's not pretty." 

"Death never is." Logan sounded like he was speaking from experience. He most assuredly was. 

Scott led him to the part of the med lab that was being temporarily used as a morgue, and wasn't surprised to see Jean and the Professor were inside. She was standing beside his wheelchair but holding his hand, and he supposed Xavier was still offering telepathic comfort. He wished he could help her somehow - the idea of feeling someone else die was chilling, and he really didn't know how Jean could bear it  - but again, he was not a telepath: he could not know what it was like. Honestly he was glad about that, but his heart still ached for her. 

She gave him a questioning look, and he knew what she was asking - did Logan know the woman? Scott shook his head in reply as Logan asked her, "Are you okay?" 

She mustered up an anemic smile for him ( oh yeah, sure - like Logan was actually concerned for anyone beyond himself ), and said, "I will be." 

Logan nodded solemnly, sniffed, then said awkwardly, "Can I see her?" 

Jean tightened her grip on Xavier's hand. "Are you sure you want to?" 

He nodded. "I have to know." 

Scott supposed that was fair enough. Jean must have thought so too, because she nodded, let go of Xavier's hand, and used her telekinesis to open the metal drawer where the woman's body waited in cold storage. She probably didn't want to be so close to it again so soon, and he couldn't blame her. 

The body was covered by a clean sheet, only minutely spotted with blood by the neck, and Logan approached it warily, walking in that strangely careful way of his, so even though he was barefoot on a metal floor he hardly made any noise at all, and paused before pulling back the sheet, uncovering her face. 

Again, Scott couldn't get over her resemblance to Jean.Maybe it was the nose or the cheekbones, the facial shape, all of the above or none of the above, but it was all he could do not to shudder. 

Logan's shoulders stiffened, and Jean asked, "Do you recognize her?" 

"She looks like you," he said, speaking Scott's thoughts aloud. Logan carefully opened one of her eyelids, saw the white eyes, and then gently closed it again. He then examined the wound in her throat. "Smells like ... a chemical detonator." 

Scott, Jean, and Xavier all shared curious glances. Logan and that nose of his. Frankly, it was kind of creepy at times. "Do you mean gunpowder?" She asked. 

"No. Not nitroglycerin, but somethin' like it. She had an explosive in her neck. Why the hell would she have an explosive in her neck?" 

That was a damn good question. "She said something about a second implant," Jean admitted. "But I didn't know what she meant. I assumed she was incoherent due to shock." 

"Second implant?" Logan repeat, brows sinking low over his eyes. "What exactly did she say?" 

"I - " 

"Show me." 

She stared at him in shock. Jean hadn't even shared it with him, but then again, Scott hadn't asked. She was so shaken up and of course the whole "dying in her mind" thing ... but he would have been willing if it helped her at all. "Logan ..." 

"I can take it." He then added, somewhat sardonically, "I've died before. I can deal." 

She glanced nervously at Xavier, who seemed to give her a reassuring nod, and then walked cautiously over towards Logan. Logan met her half way, perhaps so she didn't have to get that close to the woman's body before she was ready. She seemed to take a deep, steadying breath and stared at Logan for a solid thirty seconds before closing her eyes, and sharing her memories with him. 

Scott felt suddenly, inexplicably jealous. Stupid - he knew it was stupid. Jean was just sharing the memories of this poor woman's agonizing death with him - a death Logan might be connected to somehow ( would it surprise him? Not at all ). But he still crossed his arms over his chest and tried to tamp down his anger, so Xavier ( or Jean, peripherally ) wouldn't pick up on it. Why was it taking so long? 

Jean then opened her eyes, blinking back tears, and Logan hugged her, although it seemed absent minded, an automatic reflex that meant nothing. A good thing, as it was the emptiness of the gesture that kept him from going over there and ripping his fucking head off. 

"Compensated for me," Logan said, apropos of nothing. He must have been repeating something the woman said. He tore away from Jean ( she was just stunned - she really wasn't disappointed he let her go ), and looked back at the corpse. "She knew of a first implant and destroyed it somehow. She suspected a second one but didn't know for sure - but it did exist, and it killed her." 

"An implant given to her by whom?" Xavier asked. 

Logan shook his head, staring at the dead woman as if expecting her to answer. "I don't know. I guess the answer's on the disks." He went to the dead woman's side, and looked down at her with such an overwhelming expression of angry sadness that Scott was surprised he didn't burst into tears or put his fist through the wall. "I have to what? What am I supposed to do with the disks?" Obviously rhetorical questions somehow related to what Jean had showed him, he sighed heavily and pulled the sheet back over the woman's face. "This is related to the Organization somehow; I'm sure of it." 

"Well, duh," Scott commented, and for some reason Jean shot him an evil look for it. 

But Logan seemed to pay no attention to him at all, and that took some of the fun out of it. "I don't understand ... could this be a trap?" 

"You think they'd kill someone as part of a trap?" Scott commented. That seemed pretty far fetched. 

Logan finally paid attention to him, giving him a hateful glare that verged on demonic. "Would you put it past 'em, Boy Scout?" 

"Hey." After that snide nickname, there was no way in hell he was conceding he may have had a point. 

Logan then looked slightly panicked, shifting his gaze to Xavier. "If they know I'm here, we have to lock down. They might - " 

"I think they've known you were here for some time," Xavier pointed out calmly, exuding the kind of serenity only he could in situations like this. "If they were inclined to make a move, I doubt it would be when we expect them to do so." 

Logan nodded in agreement, but Scott saw him doing that clenching and unclenching of his hands again. Was there something he wasn't telling them? He seemed really nervous ... 

The door opened, and Storm came inside, looking at them all in turn. Unlike Jean, she had not changed her blood flecked shirt, but Jean really hadn't had a choice; it wasn't flecked so much as completely sodden. "The disks are as ready as they're ever gonna be," she said, glancing between them. But her gaze fell the longest on Logan, possibly due to his "connection" to all of this. 

"Excellent," Xavier said, and his wheelchair hummed to life. They followed him out, Scott waiting until everyone was out of the room before he joined them, bringing up the rear. 

Scott knew it was petty and probably childish, but who had Jean turned to for comfort in this time? The Professor and Logan. The Professor he could understand - a fellow telepath, they lived in a world he could never really know. But Logan? Logan?! 

He wondered if there'd be time to ask Logan if he wanted to do some training later. He really felt like doing some sparring right now. And what could be more relaxing than beating the holy shit out of Logan? 

They retreated to an adjacent room, an adjunct of the "war" room, where Storm had a computer up and running. These were different from the upstairs computer in that they were extremely high powered and had a specially isolated mainframe, as well as security protocols that would make the Pentagon jealous. 

Storm had removed the chair in front of the computer desk beforehand, so the Professor was able to maneuver right up to it and insert the first now unbloodied disk into the drive. For a moment the drive just hummed, and they all crowded around him for a look at the flat screen monitor. Jean grabbed his hand, and he interlaced his fingers with hers, giving her a warm smile ... and then he noticed her other hand was tightly gripping Logan's shoulder. 

One of these days, he was going to kill that bastard. 

Blocks of numbers flashed by on the screen, along with a jumble of letters and other symbols. "Is it encrypted?" he asked, leaning over Xavier's shoulder. 

"I'm running a decrypting program now," he told him. It was nice that the Professor never said, "How do I know, dumbass?" 

"Wait," Storm said suddenly. "I swear I just saw the name Wolverine." 

"Where?" Jean asked. 

"Two pages back," Logan said, as flatly as if this was of no concern to him at all. "In fact, I've seen it seven times." After a pause, and another column of letters flashed by, he said, "Eight." 

It went by so fast all Scott could see were blurs. He was making that up! There was no way he could read that fast.  
But he did have sharp eyesight - maybe he wasn't reading it more than catching the name as it flew by. 

"It's not encrypted," the Professor said. "It's damaged. The data has been corrupted." 

"But some of it is salvageable, right?" Scott was certain he'd never heard so much desperation in Logan's voice before. 

"I believe so." 

Logan sighed and hung his head, as if the answer had been a relief. Jean squeezed his shoulder in reassurance, and Scott gripped her hand more tightly. Did she even realize what she was doing? 

But he supposed that was an argument for another time. Right now, they all tried to concentrate on what little data they could scrounge from the dead woman's disks, all wondering if she had died for absolutely nothing. 

3 

    He stared at the data, hoping that it would soon make more sense. He figured that maybe, if he stared at it long enough, he'd see a pattern - like those stupid "3 - D " pictures that were all the rage a decade back. 

But all Logan had gotten so far were dry eyes, a numb butt, and an almost undeniable urge to smash the computer. 

Pretty much like those 3 - D pics, come to think of it. 

He closed his eyes and saw the afterimages of the names burnt onto his retinas. His name was at the top of the list. Wolverine. Why? Did it make a difference, or in all the data scrambling did positioning become irrelevant? 

He heard the door open, but already knew who it was by the scent of the perfume. "How'd the post mortem go?" He asked Jean, long before opening his eyes. 

She didn't do a proper autopsy - she claimed she wasn't trained to - but she could examine the wound, do a few scans, and make some educated guesses. "You were right - the wound was caused by something inside her exploding outward. It's an exit wound with no entrance wound." 

He opened his eyes, and looked at the screen again. No change, but he could now see her reflection in it. "A microexplosive." 

"I didn't know those existed," she admitted wearily, coming up to stand behind his chair. 

"Neither did I." He wondered if he had one in his system they'd never been able to detonate. Or maybe that came after his time with them; maybe he escaped before they could commit that particular atrocity to him. 

He saw Jean's reflection scrutinizing the names on the screen. "You found all these?" She had piled her hair up on her head, probably to keep it out of the way during her examination, but it was sloppy in a way that was odd for her and yet completely endearing. She looked a little better than before too; maybe being able to stick to the logical breaking down of a person as things - chemical composition, bodily organs, parts of a whole - helped her regain her clinical distance. 

"I found these all in this exact order. Wolverine, Shrike, Wraith, Static." 

"Static? That's a new one." 

"I know." 

She gave him a troubled look. "You recognize it?" 

"Not precisely. I just feel that I should, just like I feel I should know that woman in there." He paused, then admitted, "I keep thinking of her with a snake." 

"Pardon?" 

"A snake tattoo, a coiled snake cartoon ... something like that." 

He felt her hands tightly grip the back of his chair, and he finally glanced up at her. "What?" 

She looked down at him, partially stunned. "She has an ouroboros tattoo on her left hip." 


	3. Part 3

Ouroboros - the snake biting its own tail. The symbol of eternity. He glanced back at the screen, trying to hide his own shock. "Shit. I did know her, didn't I?" 

"It would seem that you did." She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Sleeper?" 

That was another block of reconstructed data on the screen. Sleeper was about the only large word; most of the rest of the block were connective words: the, for, and, also, then, when, it. "I think it might be a code name, or a project name." 

"What could it mean?" 

"No idea if it's a code name." 

"But otherwise?" 

He sighed. The others had gone off to do various things - he didn't know, and he didn't care - although he believed Xavier was trying to help repair the disks. That was all he cared about right now. "Otherwise sleeper can mean a deep cover agent who's yet to be activated, or a deep cover agent who has been activated, but is so deep under they - or the people not directly connected to them - may not know it." 

"An agent? As in a spy?" 

He shrugged. Were there other interpretations? 

"So, you were a spy?" 

He glanced up at her sharply. "How the fuck should I know? Do I look like James Bond to you?" 

She smiled slyly, and he felt he was about to be insulted, but at the last second she stopped herself. Good. "How do you know this then?" 

He looked back at the screen, hoping more usable data had been recovered. Just more randomized words that made no sense put together: date electricity final due the to and from with over before. "I read a lot. How the fuck should I know, Jean? I just know - I can't explain it." 

"Like you knew the woman had a tattoo? Like the name Static sounds familiar to you?" 

He sighed, and wished he was alone again. "Yeah, exactly." 

For a long minute she watched the screen with him in silence, and he found himself unfocusing his eyes slightly so he could look at her instead of the data. She did look like that woman, somewhat. A coincidence, sure ... but did it mean anything more than that? 

"Did you discover her mutant powers?" He asked, trying to sound casual. 

She shook her head, inadvertently sending more perfume wafting his way. "I'm having some scans analyzed. Physically her musculature seems enhanced, so I'd say she was stronger than average, but not as strong as you. But the most interesting thing seems to be the development of her brain. It looked like she had a small extra developed region in her pre - frontal cortex." 

That almost sounded familiar, and he was glad she let him work it out for himself rather than instantly volunteer the information. "Like a telepath?" 

"Like, but not exactly. There's something else going on there, but since she's dead I can't measure the output and say what for sure. Needless to say, she had some sort of extra psychic ability, but what I have no idea." 

"Probably not a telepath, though?" 

"Probably not. I got no sense of that in her mind." After a moment, she said, "She cared about you. Did you pick that up?" 

She was referring to their "shared" experience, where Jean let him "see" her memory of what the woman said before she died. It was weird to get a "taste" of telepathy like that, the strange, chaotic regions of people's thoughts, but it was slightly less overwhelming than it had been for him in Bob's mind. Once again, it convinced him Bob was not a telepath - he was way too strong to qualify for that. "She was afraid for me." He picked up that much. She knew she was dead, and yet she mostly cared about getting this to him. Why? Why couldn't she think about what the hell he was supposed to do with it? "It wasn't love." Thank god - he didn't need more guilt on his plate than he already had. 

"No," Jean agreed, and one of her hands slid off the back of the chair and onto his shoulder. "But it was close." 

He looked at her, and their positioning left them almost face to face. "Don't do this to me, Jean," he told her, close enough to smell the lemon tea on her breath. "I'm barely holdin' it together as it is." 

"I know the feeling," she said, and she moved in closer to him, her soft lips brushing his gently. Not a kiss, but about to be. And why the hell not? 

He was about to kiss when he realized there was someone in the hall - someone he could smell in spite of her perfume and lemon tea and antibacterial soap - and he quickly turned away, back towards the computer screen. 

The door opened, and Scott stood there, looking at them. "Find anything?" He asked, and Logan knew simply from the feeling that Scott, underneath that visor, was giving him the evil eye. 

    "Nothin' new," he said, staring at the screen. More information came up, this time columns of numbers mixed in with more out of context words: the and is first to the it white sensor but and prior less. "You got anything?" 

"Actually, yes," Scott had volunteered to lighten Jean's load and go through the dead woman's blood soaked coat, looking for anything that might identify her. "I found this hidden inside the lining of her jacket." He held up a white square about the size of a business card with the matte sheen of a laminate, and brought it over to them. He didn't need to - from here, Logan could see it was some type of weird i.d. card, with a bar code taking up the space where there should have been a photograph. In fact, it was all bar code, with a single word in small black type: "Sloane". 

"We have a name," Jean said triumphantly. "Sloane. I wonder if that was a first or last name." 

"Like Logan," Scott said, somewhat snarkily. 

But he had a point - that was a hell of a coincidence, wasn't it? 

"I'm thinking this is some kind of i.d. badge," Scott continued, glancing at Jean alone. "But I've never seen one which offered so little information." 

"So in case she died with it on her, it couldn't be traced," he told him automatically. Only after it was out of his mouth did he realize that was true. How did he know that? 

Hee thought he could tell, by the expression on her face, that Jean was going to ask that, but then another text block appeared on screen, and among all the words without context, was a name he recognized: Siberia. 

"How - " Jean began, but then the Boy Scout saw what was on screen. 

"Hey," he interrupted. "Why does that sound familiar?" 

"It's a part of Russia, dumb ass." 

"I'm aware of that," Scott replied testily. "I mean as related to you." 

Logan knew, and felt a sudden stab of shock in his stomach, but he tried not to let on. "I don't - " 

But then Jean gasped, and grabbed the back of his chair hard. "That horrid man, that psychic demon - didn't he say  something about you being sent to Siberia?" 

He simply nodded, not wanting to say it out loud. According to that demon - Hedwin? - he'd been dropped into Siberia once, working for those men, and had killed ... how many did he claim? Two hundred people? He couldn't imagine two hundred people in a room, nonetheless two hundred corpses. Did he actually kill two hundred people? Could he? Well, okay, that was a stupid question - of course he could, but why would he? 

No - Hedwin was a demon ( not to mention a demon working for the government ), and they lied. They all fucking lied, and he just said that to ... 

( ... he was under Bob's control - he couldn't lie. ) 

Logan rubbed his eyes, which felt like sandpaper, and said, "Yeah, that's what he claimed. But I got no idea what's true or what he was simply told." 

"We could look him up and ask," Scott suggested. "We know where to find the bastard." 

"Yeah, the cemetery." 

"What? He's dead?" 

Logan looked back at Scott and glared at him, on the verge of saying, "Remember? Helga blew his fucking brains out." - but then he remembered they didn't know that. Bob had kept them from hearing it, because he knew they'd object. He had to make up a lie, and make it fast. "Somehow Hedwin's location got leaked to a demon who eats psychic demons, and Bob heard he got himself devoured. " Now that was so disgusting they were sure to believe it. 

They did. Jean looked horrified, and Scott sneered in disgust. "And I bet Bob had nothing to do with that, right?" 

Logan shrugged, and knew Bob wouldn't care if he took the rap for this. Bob didn't care about a lot of the intangibles. "He's not the type to eat demons." There was a really filthy joke in there, but he wasn't wasting it on the Boy Scout. Bob would probably get a kick out of it, though. 

It was clear from Scott's scowl that he still suspected Bob somehow, and since Bob was, in a way, responsible for Hedwin's death ( keeping him from killing the bastard, he gave it to Helga ), he had no problem letting him think that. 

He felt Jean's hand on his shoulder again, and she said, "Could all of this have something to do with what you did there?" 

Logan shook his head helplessly, looking at more strings of numbers and useless, jumbled words: on to more it the the the and is before energy but to and sequence the left and it forward blood. 

Blood. Now there was an interesting word. It seemed to define his whole life in a single syllable. 

"The big one was a secret base in Siberia. It was guarded by an army, mutants and maybe demons among them. Because of surveillance nobody could get within fifty miles of the place, and those dropped in usually died of exposure before the army guarding the place got a chance to kill them. The Organization sent Wolverine out," Scott suddenly said, reciting word for word what Hedwin had said under Bob's control. "If you needed an army fast but couldn't get one,you just had to drop the Wolverine in,because he could do the impossible." 

"Stop the fuckin' flashback, Summers - I was there," he growled, his hands clenching into fists. Hearing it once had been bad enough. 

"What do you think was there?" Scott said, not quite letting up. "What was so damn important they'd let their own people die one by one in hopes of securing it?" 

"Mutants were expendable to them," Logan replied through clenched teeth. Summers was just going to have to shut up, or he was going to smash that visor right through the back of his head. "It was probably a fuckin' vodka recipe. You think they gave a shit about any of us?" 

Was he a mass murderer? Dear god, what had they made him do in their name? 

But he could tell by the expression on Scott's face he was still thinking about it, trying to formulate some theory to tie it all together. "What happened to Sloane proves they don't think much about mutants; they killed her rather than let her near you with these disks. But damaged or not, how could they be important now? How could anything that happened years ago - assuming it was years - be still that important after all this time? I mean, you don't even remember - " 

"Shut the fuck up!" Logan roared, jumping to his feet and glaring at him, fists clenched and muscles coiled. He wanted to hurt him; he wanted to make him shut up. He wanted to hurt something, anything, he didn't care what. He didn't want to have think anymore - 

( - Sloane. The bastards had killed Sloane. And how many had he killed - ) 

- and he was so furious he was shaking. Or at least he wanted to think that's why he was shaking. 

"Logan," Jean said, trying to sound calm in spite of the stink of fear coming off of her. She had one hand raised in a warding off gesture, but he knew she was ready to use her powers against him if he tried anything against either one of them. Good - at least she finally got that message. "Calm down. We're only trying to help - " 

"I don't need your fucking help," he snarled, kicking the computer chair aside. It hit the far wall hard enough to shatter, making Jean jump, and both she and Scott took a step back. Neither had done anything yet, but now Scott, sissy boy that he was, had his hand raised to the side of his visor. 

"Don't do something you'll regret," he said, the lamest threat Logan had ever heard. 

"Too late." He didn't realize what he had said until after it was out of his mouth. No matter. "And ya know I could kill you before you could open the shutter, right 'Clops?" 

"Logan," Jean said sternly, like he was a student just mouthing off. But then she said something that earned his attention : "Hasn't there been enough violence today?" 

He turned his gaze to her, and felt like he was sleepwalking. Maybe that was it; maybe he was the Sleeper. "No," he told her. " Not while those fuckers are still alive." He stalked out before he was forced to explain that, or listen to their oh so well meaning platitudes. He needed to clear his head so he could think, but he was so angry he couldn't hear anything but the blood pounding in his ears. He needed to burn this off before he could even hope to think, but there weren't enough things in this world he could hurt to make it go away. 

He was still the creature they wanted him to be. And Logan wasn't sure there was anything like the real him left anymore. 

4 

    Scott wished he was surprised to find Logan back in the gym again, but once he confirmed he hadn't left the grounds and that the Danger Room was still out of commission for repairs ( Logan had damaged it, of course -  the man was a menace ), there was no where else for him to be. Well, his room, but he looked far too worked up to brood. 

As if to prove his supposition correct, the second he walked through the doors, Logan punched one of the specially reinforced heavy bags so hard the chain suspending it from the ceiling snapped like Bobby had iced it, and it flew across the room, hitting the far wall with such incredible force it seemed to eviscerate itself in a huge cloud of sawdust. How heavy was that goddamn thing? 

But rather than be impressed - although secretly he was ( why didn't he ever hit Sabertooth that hard? And where the hell was he when Fenrir showed his ugly mug? ) - he simply told him blandly, "You're paying for that." 

Logan snarled at him like a wolf. "I ain't in a mood for company. Get out of here." 

Scott had to admit to himself that Logan's sudden blind rage hadn't been all that surprising - he was known for that, wasn't he? But still, the more he thought about it, the more he realized the reason for it, and wasn't that a shock? 

So Logan started to go psycho loony on them after what? The reminder of what he supposedly did in Siberia. Jean thought that the woman's death was really kicking in for him - maybe he was starting to remember - and that was a possibility. But Scott thought it was the fact that he had ( okay, supposedly ) killed two hundred people that finally got to him. 

He didn't think of Logan having a conscience, and he most likely didn't - how could he and live like he did? But he was still a human being ( no matter how he acted most of the time ), and now that he had to think about it he couldn't stand it. 

He didn't want to feel for the guy - he detested him; he bet he'd always detest him - but for the first time in a long while, Scott began thinking about what the Organization had done to him. 

He killed people for them, hadn't he? Thank god or Bob or his own mind that he didn't remember anything about it or the telepathic violation necessary for him to do that, but Logan might not have been so lucky. He certainly remembered what they did to him physically - Scott was surprised he wasn't addicted to sleeping pills. Of course, maybe if his physiology allowed it, he would be. He'd probably be a heroin addict if his body allowed it, just to forget the few things he could remember. 

Scott knew he was probably lucky. The Organization didn't have him for long, and that limited what they could do to him, especially since they instantly put him to "work". But if he had ended up staying with them, would they have done some "alterations" to him like they so obviously did to Logan? Just thinking about it made him feel queasy. 

Scott let the door swing shut behind him, and wondered if Logan had noticed he'd changed clothes. He'd put on his work out clothes of sweats and a tank top, and put on his goggle like glasses, which had no shutter to be opened or closed, but had the bonus of being held on by a band that wrapped around his head so they couldn't be knocked off. "You don't wanna talk? Fine." He crossed the wide, wood paneled room to the sparring ring, which looked like a rectangular boxing ring, only set up with blue mats and slender but cable strong blue ropes, and found the padded gloves Logan had tossed inside earlier. He grabbed them and threw them over to Logan. He could have caught them - he knew the reflexes he had - but he didn't; Logan let them hit his chest and bounce off to the floor. "Let's fight." 

Logan chuckled derisively, crossing his arms. "I ain't in a mood to humor you. Get out of here before you get hurt." 

"You really think I can't fight, don't you? You think I what - sit on my ass all day, eating potato chips and channel surfing?" He found another pair of padded gloves and slipped them on, tightening the velcro around his wrists. 

"I don't know what you do, 'Clops, and I don't give a fuck. Leave me alone." 

"Or you'll what? Hurt me? You're welcome to try." Scott was of two minds about this: first of all, he really, really wanted to hit him; he wanted to beat him until he was bleeding from the ears ( although he knew that was - in theory - impossible ). But second of all, he knew from experience that Logan, with all that adamantium and no moral compunctions whatsoever, could hurt him quite badly. He'd barely recovered from the beating Logan handed out when Heydon had control of his body. This could be really, really ugly. 

But how could he look past the opportunity to punch this son of a bitch? 

He slammed his gloved fists together and started towards Logan, who was eying him with such loathing and disdain he barely looked Human. His upper lip curled over one of his canine teeth in a snarl that was mocking, his green eyes as hard as glass. "At what point does this impress me?" 

"How about now?" He suggested, quickly turning into a spinning kick that should have nailed Logan in the jaw. Should being the operative word. 

The feeling of hard contact traveled down his leg, but as soon as he realized he hadn't hit Logan's jaw at all but Logan had caught his foot - hard - inches in front of his face, Logan pulled. Scott slammed down on the wood floor, losing his breath in a gasp as he felt a sharp pain travel down his spine. Wow, wood flooring really wasn't a comfortable place to land. He could have lived his whole life without needing to know that first hand. "At least you're paying attention," Scott said, as if he planned that. 

Logan snorted derisively and didn't let go of his foot more than he threw it to the floor. "Yeah, whatever. You'd be better off sickin' your girlfriend on me." 

As he turned away, Scott, still laying on the floor, kicked out and caught Logan in the back of the knee. As he dropped to his knees on the floor, Scott rolled, making sure his heel caught the back of Logan's head. That hurt more than he anticipated, sending an almost tingling, numbing pain up his leg, but damn if it wasn't worth it. 

He felt pretty slick as he rolled up to his feet ( in spite of his still tingling leg - having an adamantium skull was so beyond cheating ), but what surprised him - and shouldn't have, in retrospect - was how fast Logan moved. In the space of second he was on his feet, and Scott had just gained his in time to come face to face with Logan. And he didn't look amused. 

Well, for the split second he saw him. 

There was a blur out of the corner of his eye, and he tried to evade it, but his reflexes weren't nearly as quick as he had thought. Something that felt like an anvil crashed into the side of his face, and he really did see an explosion of stars before his eyes as he hit the floor once more, and his consciousness swam as he tasted blood in his mouth. He was pretty sure his jaw wasn't broken, but it was a close thing. "What the fuck are you tryin' to prove?!" Logan roared at him, as if he had put him on the floor and not vice versa. "D'ya want me to kill you, is that it?!" 

His vision started filling itself in, and he wiped his fingers over his lips. Yep, that was blood all right."It wasn't your fault, you know," he said, panting slightly as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. At least Logan was out of kicking distance, if Scott had it in his mind to try something like that again. But he surely did not - it wouldn't work twice. Still, it was an ego charge to know he was on his guard. He stunned him if he didn't precisely hurt him. 

Next time, he had to go for the gut. No adamantium there. 

Logan stared at him like he was confused. "What? You actin' like a shithead? I know!" 

"Those people," he elaborated, wiping more blood from his lips. The ache in his mouth told him what happened - he'd cut the inside of his cheek on his own teeth, and one of the molars might have been loosened. Damn it, he just paid off his last dental work. "You didn't really kill them, Logan. The Organization did." 

He scoffed loudly and shook his head, but what was that look just crossed his face? Did he have a concussion, or did Logan actually - for a split second - look scared? "So that's what this is? Some bullshit attempt at pop psychology?" 

"No. I also wanted to hit you." 

He shrugged a single shoulder, obviously understanding that desire. 

"They used me too, you know," he went on, using the wall behind him to help himself to his feet. Since when had he  been this close to the door? Man, Logan must have hit him with a doubled fist to send him sprawling this far out. Was he trying to cave in his skull? "I try not to think about what they did to me, but - " 

"What they did to you?!" Logan snapped, his rage suddenly building anew. His eyes almost glowed with it, and a vein started to throb in his temple. Oh crap - what did he say?! "You shit, they did nothing to you! So what, they telepathically raped you and made you wipe out a church and a truck stop?! Who gives a fuck! Did they mutilate you?! Did they steal your entire fucking life?! Don't even try to compare our experiences, Summers! You were their tool for what - two days?! And Bob gave you back everything they took away!" He then shook his head in disgust and turned away, stalking towards the door. 

"I know what you're going to do," Scott said, leaning against the wall for support, subtly so Logan wouldn't have the satisfaction of knowing he had almost knocked him clear into next week. In retrospect, maybe pissing him off beforehand hadn't been the wisest tactical move. But when was Logan not pissed off? "You can't go after them alone." 

Logan glared at him as he paused by the door, and for a second Scott was sure he looked completely swamped by frustration more than anger. "No, I'll call Bob. But maybe you and the rest of the Girl Scouts should sit this one out. It could get ugly." 

Logan was half way through the door when he reminded him, "It's already ugly." 

But he didn't even pause, he kept straight on going, and as soon as the doors shut, Scott figured he take a second to regain his bearings before even trying to walk. He'd been violently introduced to the floor enough for one day. 

That really could have gone better. But at least it reminded him to be glad he wasn't Logan. 

5 

    It really irritated him when Scott made him think of something. Why didn't he just cave his smug fucking skull in?! 

Because Xavier would probably charge him rent if he did, and the "fuck me" vibe Jean was constantly sending out would probably disappear. Well, at least for a little while. 

He couldn't call Bob in now - there was nothing for him to work off of. He needed Bob when he found someone with a lead to where these fuckers were, or better yet an actual base; as it stood now, all he had were scrambled disks, a dead body, and the vague sense that the more he dug into his past, the more he would hate himself. Could Bob do a better data recovery than Xavier and his super powered machines? Maybe. But Scott pissing him off had reminded him there was another ally he could call in; someone else who had some experience moving against these bastards, someone who might be able to gain access to some of their files, or might know what some of the shit they recovered meant. 

Xavier was still in the lower levels, working at a computer station in what was essentially his "underground" study. His back was to Logan when he entered the room, but without even glancing back, he instantly told him, "I'm putting together a program that may allow us to sort the information back into a coherent order." 

Telepaths were always show offs, weren't they? 

Xavier then backed up a bit and looked at him, curiosity bright in his eyes. "What can I do for you, Logan?" 

If he knew, why didn't he just read his mind and save them all time? He sighed, and said, "You can use Cerebro to find any mutant, right?" Xavier just nodded. "I need to find someone, but I'm not even sure they're in the States." 

"I can start a concentric search, start here and move outward." His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was looking at something through him, out in the hall. "You think he could help." 

"Yeah - " 

"You plan to do this without us." 

This was incredible. "What are you people, my fucking parents? This has nothing to do with you, and I think it'd be better for everyone if we kept it that way, all right?" 

Xavier continued to stare at him for a very long moment, measuring him and his veracity, and said, "I won't force the issue. But if it involves you, Logan, it already involves us." 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, unable to believe this shit. Would he be saying that if  he knew how close he had just been to beating his pet's head through the gym floor? "Spare me the "we're all brothers" shit, okay? I was the one who got his life totally fucked over, okay? Not you. But if you insist on gettin' involved, you might end up the same way. So spare me the platitudes and let me do this my own way." Well, he was going to anyways, but he was being polite. Sort of. 

Xavier looked like he was going to argue with him, his blue eyes narrowing and growing remarkably cold, but at the last second he seemed to change his mind. "We're always here for you, Logan. And we are not as harmless as you think we are." 

Logan was in no mood to argue with him, as arguing with a telepath never paid off. He just wanted to find out what the data on the disks meant before they came after him. Again. 

It would also help, if he was going to avenge Sloane, to know exactly who she was. 

*** 

    If she didn't know something was wrong by him canceling his shop class, Jean knew beyond a shadow of a doubt when she tried to contact him and discovered he was asleep. 

When she entered their room, Scott was stretched out on the covers of the bed, holding an ice pack to the right side of his face, the curtains closed against the bright afternoon sun. "Were you trying to contact me?" He asked, voice slurred with sleep, but he didn't try and sit up. 

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at him. "Sorry to wake you. What happened?" She gently grabbed the ice pack - he was resistant, but not for long - and she removed it to see - in spite of the dim slivers of light - a very ugly purplish - black bruise causing his right cheek to swell. "Oh my god." 

"You said someone needed to talk to Logan, so ... " 

"Since when does talking involve fists?" She put the ice pack on the nightstand, and tried to tenderly examine the wound. She sucked in a sharp breath, and said, "Sorry if I hurt you." 

"Oh no, you can't. I feel no pain." He grinned as best he could with a swollen cheek, and said, "I took one of those tylenol codeine I had left over from my dental work. I'm good." 

She sighed. "I can't check you for a concussion then, can I?" 

"I don't have a concussion, sweetheart - just a bruised ego. I'll live." 

Sweetheart? Had to be the medication talking. Scott didn't take a lot of drugs - not even aspirin - so when he did they hit him hard.  She remembered when he took an over the counter cold pill and he slept for twelve hours straight; nothing short of a nuclear blast was getting him up. "Are you sure?" 

"Positive. It's only the inside of my cheek that really hurt. Well, until my head started throbbing like a infected cyst. If he'd put on the gloves, though, the fight would've lasted longer. I'd have kicked his ass." 

"You challenged him to a fight? In the mood he was in?" 

"It's the only way he'll listen. And it was worth it all to kick him in the head." 

She rolled her eyes. "Men." 

"I know." 

"I'll need to get you in for some scans later, just to make sure you don't have a hairline fracture of the cheekbone. Okay?" 

He saluted. "Yes ma'am." 

"You really should sleep it off." 

He chuckled faintly, letting his hand fall back to the bed. "Oh, probably." After a pause, he added, "I really do want to hurt them, you know." 

Since he said "them", she assumed he didn't mean Logan. "Who?" 

"The Organization. If he goes after them, I want to go too." 

That was something Scott didn't talk much about, his time with that group, but she assumed it was a combination of Bob's "pushing" and his natural reticence to talk about such things. She took his hand in hers - it was still cold from the ice pack - and said, "I know it's selfish of me, but I don't want you near those people ever again. I almost lost you." 

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Before she could ask what he meant by that, he quickly added, "Part of me doesn't want to get near them either. But I want to destroy them before they even think of doing that to any other mutant." 

"Brainwashing?" 

He scoffed, but in a humorless manner. "If only that was the worst thing." 

She studied him curiously, his hand still firmly clasped in hers. He so rarely opened up like this to her anymore; she'd missed it, and only now did she realize it. "What was?" 

For a moment he hesitated, and she wasn't sure if he was going to tell her. But finally he did, gazing up at the ceiling behind his dark red lenses, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed hard. "It's the reason Logan screams at night. Not pain - I felt no pain - although I'm sure he did; I can't imagine what it would feel like to have your body ripped apart. It's the helplessness, Jeannie; pain would be preferable to knowing you can't do anything to stop them or save yourself. That these people have you, and they can do anything they want to you, and all you can do is lay there and take it; that you mean nothing to these people, that you're just ... an object, a tool. Not a real person - just a thing. A thing who's only worth is what you can do for them. You can feel them tearing your mind down, stripping you of everything you are, but you can't even fight it. You're bound, gagged, and paralyzed, even in your own mind - but not so paralyzed that you can't feel every excruciating inch of what you're losing." He paused, as if gathering his thoughts, and then added, in a low voice, "I thought the worst feeling in the world was when I found out I couldn't control my powers. I thought I'd have to be blind for the rest of my life if I didn't want to hurt anyone. But I was wrong; that feeling wasn't even close." She saw a single tear trickle from beneath his glasses, down his bruised cheek, and her heart almost broke for him. He had never told her anything like that before - he rarely if ever mentioned his time with them. But maybe that was why. 

She laid down on the bed next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Scott." 


	4. Part 4

He shook his head. "Not your fault. And you saved me, remember?" Bob did, actually, but it was cute the way he credited her with it. He idly reached around and stroked her back, as if she was the one in need of comforting. "Logan was right - our experiences aren't comparable. But whether he believes it or not, I want to see them gone as much as he does." 

Jean didn't say anything. She just laid there, listening to his heartbeat, and wondered how many other people were going to die before this was all over. 

6 

    Reaper decided he'd been too kind to Static. 

She had not completely disabled all the security measures when she had raided his secret computer files, so he knew what she was doing, but sadly the agents who responded first - while immune to her static bursts - were not immune to her physical prowess. You'd think a woman nearing fifty would be soft and slow, but that applied only to Mundanes - or, as he preferred to call them, Frails. 

At the opposite end of that extreme was Wolverine. You'd think a man well over one hundred years old would be bed ridden, incontinent, and falling to pieces by now, but his power left him virtually ageless. Yet how much of a threat was he now? 

He already knew what Spike was going to say when he came into his office, so fidgety he was almost vibrating. "I saw the security tapes," Reaper told him. "She didn't make it to the school. Are you going to tell me she got the disks to Wolverine anyways?" 

The young Indian man nodded, hands clasped nervously in front of him. He was a tall but reed thin guy with a baby face, who looked about a hundred pounds soaking wet, and about as threatening as a hangnail. But his mutation was actually quite lethal, and he was a great operative; trustworthy too, as his ambition collided with his hatred of the Frails. "Go to time index twelve oh seventeen on the tape," he said, nodding his head towards the small video monitor on his desk. 

Reaper did, rewinding it until the security tape - from a parking garage opposite the street where the fancy clothing store that Static died in was located - showed that time index in the upper left corner. The tape had barely started running when there was a sudden white out on the tape, a line of distortion that caused the camera to briefly snow. "One of Static's bursts," Reaper sighed, sitting back in his chair. It creaked like the springs were rusty. "I assume that was done in shock after the microexplosive was detonated." 

"So did everyone else, but you must have forgotten a little curiosity of her powers: she can - could - "feel" telepaths with her static burst. She liked to call it "sonar" - she knew when she hit a target and could "feel" the "bounce back". That's what she did, and that's why she went there." 

"There was a telepath in the store?" 

His lips twisted, and he glanced down at the floor as if afraid to look him in the eyes. "Not just any telepath." 

It was lovely how things generally went from bad to worse. Static's sudden urge to go "rogue" had made the Frails in the Org nervous; he couldn't have them doing a purge of the mutants therein until he was ready. "Surely not Xavier." 

"Jean Grey." 

Bad enough. "Could Static have lived long enough to give her the disks?" 

"We believe she did. She and her friend even took Static's body back with them." 

He shook his head. Incompetence or shoddy emergency planning, or both? At least the microdetonator managed to function, in spite of her powers. "Did the magnetic pulse work? Do we know?" 

Spike couldn't decide whether to shrug or shake his head, so he did both. "They believe she was caught in the field radius, but how much damage was done to the disks is impossible to say until we have our hands on them." 

He had no idea she was such a bitch. Well, she was defending Wolverine until the end, even after he'd gone rogue ( and left a huge body count in his wake ) - he should have let that be his clue. "I want a tracker on Wolverine as of an hour ago," he told him, scowling sourly. How did this turn into such a huge fucking mess? "His abilities are known, so let's get someone who can skirt them." 

Spike thought about it, and it made him look like a grade schooler pondering an algebra equation. "Oracle?" 

He nodded. "Good enough." The C.I.A. would call her - if they ever actually had any - a "remote viewer"; she could simply think about where or who she wanted to see, and she would see it instantly in her mind. Even with his noted sensitivity to surveillance, Wolverine would be unlikely to pick her up, or - worst case scenario - know what it meant. 

He was lucky to know what anything meant. Did he even know how to tie his shoes? He'd had the telepathic equivalent of a cluster fuck; it was amazing he could speak and walk at the same time. But there was no way in hell he'd know what any of this meant, not with Static dead.  He tapped his fingers on the desk, and noted he needed another manicure - the nails were growing out again. "Have a strike team standing by, but no move is to be made as of yet. What Wolverine does will determine what we do next." 

Spike nodded, and even though he hesitated, he took his leave without another word. He was a good subordinate; it was a shame he'd probably miss all the fun. 

And as far as he was concerned, everything was still on schedule. No nosy dead bitch or old hairy freak was going to stop him now. 

*** 

Baltimore, Maryland 

    He could hear the music from down the street, but he didn't realize it was coming from his place until he was within twenty feet of the door. He figured he should have guessed. 

It wasn't a proper apartment more than it was a loft, a converted warehouse in the bad part of town that split its streets between run down tenements and artist's digs, although it was apparent that the poor but trendy side was losing big time. Maybe that's why he could get away with playing his music so loud. 

At the doorway into the apartment, he found a reinforced steel door, and an intercom system that listed everyone who lived there and in what apartment, with call buttons beside their names. Number two had a grimy name inset - P. Smythe - but all the rest were blank, until you reached number six, where the plate wasn't a name, but the words " Don't bother asking". Yep, that was his guy. 

He pressed the call button, and held it down a long time, figuring he'd barely be able to hear it over the grinding thud of Metallica's "Creeping Death" ( frankly, the song title should have given it away, shouldn't it have ). After a minute, the intercom crackled to life, and over the singer shouting "Die by my hand!", he barely heard, "Who the fuck is it?" 

"It's the fuck me," he answered combatively, then added, "Logan." 

"Fuck! Wolvie! What dump truck dragged you here?" He answered, and sounded both surprised and pleased to have him drop by. "Come on up!" 

The door buzzed, and Logan grabbed the door handle as it popped open, grimacing at the silly nickname. Did he call him Scorpy? Maybe he should, see how he liked it. 

He went up a cold, austere metal and cement staircase that just barely smelled of pee, following the music.  
It was painfully overwhelming by the time he reached the top floor, but then again, Marcus was standing in the open doorway of his loft, waiting for him. "Wow - I was expecting you to be covered in blood," he teased, grinning like a happy wolf. 

Marcus - also known as Scorpion - was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only a pair of faded jeans that looked like they'd been dragged behind a truck for a cross country trip, with sleek black welding goggles over his eyes to protect them from painful daylight, and a small gold scorpion dangling from his right earlobe. He had a beer bottle in his right hand, but he didn't smell like he'd been drinking for long. 

Logan smirked at him, and said, "Do you think I'd only show up if I needed help?" 

"I know I would," he admitted, continuing to give him that shit eating grin. He stepped back to allow him inside, and said, "Beer you?" 

"Sure." He came in, cringing at the volume, and immediately headed for the stereo. 

The front room of the loft was dominated by the entertainment system - a stereo system bigger than a compact car, a big screen t.v. that looked like a drive in screen as seen from the fifteenth row back. Otherwise the place was remarkably empty, save for a red leather couch, a violently green Persian throw rug, heavy burgundy curtains pulled across the large window overlooking the block ( fingers of light still bled in though the gaps, which probably explained the goggles ), and a "kitchenette" consisting of a mini - fridge, a microwave, and a huge bar. While Marcus got him a beer, he turned off the stereo. The silence rushed in like a river. "Oh, sorry, forgot about your ears," he said, tossing him a bottle from across the room. 

He easily caught it. "You did not, asshole. You just wanted to see if I'd put up with it." 

He flashed him that toothy grin, and said, "Okay, you caught me. So what bad news brings you here? And how'd you find me, anyways?" 

The beer Marcus had tossed him was an imported British stout. It was funny to have it cold, but even he could taste the serious alcohol kick this thing had. He didn't know what to do with the bottle cap, so he flipped it towards Marcus, who stepped aside so it could hit the hardwood floor. He didn't want it, obviously. "Xavier has this machine that allows him to find mutants - he found you for me. What the fuck are you doin' in Baltimore?" 

"It's my East Coast base. It's affordable." 

"Says the guy with the two thousand dollar stereo system." 

Marcus sat on his couch and continued to grin, even as he took a swig of his beer. "Gotta have your priorities in order." 

Logan shrugged - well, it was a kick ass system - and sat on the opposite arm of the sofa. This was one of the neatest bachelor apartments he had ever been in, but the sparse furnishings probably helped. Because the ceiling was so high, the sounds in here had the faintest echo, but he doubted anyone with normal level  hearing could catch it. "Look, somethin' weird happened today, and I thought you might be able to help me." 

He shrugged one of his large shoulders. Without a shirt on, you could see that Marcus had a huge barrel chest and thick arms that a professional weightlifter would give his left nut for ( assuming they had any nuts left after the steroids ), but Logan doubted he spent all of his days pumping iron. He didn't even see a weight set in here. So his mutations were poisoned fingernails, infrared vision, and super strength? Well hell, was he one to talk? "I'll do my best. Shoot." 

He told him about Sloane and the disks, and pulled out of his pocket the laminated but strangely generic  i.d. tag and copies of the disks. "Hope you have a computer," he added, putting the disks on the sofa. 

Marcus scoffed. "In this day and age? Who doesn't?" He got up from the sofa, putting his beer on the floor, and went into his bedroom to get it. 

"So how did you afford all this shit anyways?" He asked. None of his business, but he was curious. He couldn't have a day job, could he? 

"I've been doin' some merc work here and there," he replied, voice echoing from the bedroom. 

"Merc? As in mercenary - soldier for hire?" Knowing him, it made perfect sense. Also, it explained why the entire loft smelled of gun oil. "So why aren't you in South America or Africa or Eastern Europe or something?" 

"Why? They don't have Jack In The Boxes there, that's why," he said, the smile evidence in his voice. He came out grinning, carrying a laptop in a black case, feet slapping loudly on the floor. 

"This is going to turn into an obscene joke involving "Jack sauce", isn't it?" 

"Oh man, what a way to blow my punchline," he mock complained, taking a seat on the couch. He popped open the case, revealing a sleek, powerful looking laptop with a peripheral disk drive and some other gadgets that he had no clue about. As he booted it up, he told him seriously, "I'm picky about the jobs I'll do, and I'm the best, so I can ask my own price. Really, it's an easy gig, intermittent. You should join me, Logan. We answer to no one but ourselves, and it's so fucking easy, man. Most of these cats are ready for anything but mutants. And you and me? Come on, we make a great team. If any asshole does manage to get close enough for hand to hand, they're so dead they might as well be carryin' their tombstones on their backs. Who can stop us?" 

He knew he had a point, and it must have been the easiest money in the world. And yet, it held zero appeal. "I really don't like fightin' other people's battles." 

Marcus smirked, raising an eyebrow at him. He still kept his brown head shaved, and even in the half light, it gleamed as much as the Professor's pate did. "But you're still with the Xavier crew, huh?" 

"Sometimes those battles are mine." 

The corner of his mouth quirked up, like he thought that was a poor answer at best, and Logan took a deep swig of his beer, knowing that was true. But he didn't know what to say. 

As the computer hummed to life, and Marcus inserted the first disk, he said, "Well, I guess Jean's reasonably hot for a chick with no ass, but come on, you could get a dozen somewhere else. I mean, I'd date you in a hot second if you were a brother." 

He couldn't help but laugh."Racist. I thought all of us mutants were supposed to brothers, or whatever the fuck. And Jean has an ass." 

"Maybe if you got ultra sharp vision like yours, yeah," he deadpanned, making Logan chuckle again. He barely knew Marcus and yet he missed him, and now he knew why. He didn't make the moral judgments that seemed to be de rigueur over at Xavier's - there was no pretense with him. He was just one of the guys, and he didn't fuck around, he threw it all on the table. He was a breath of fresh air. 

He was the coolest bisexual mutant mercenary he had ever known. And most likely, the only. 

The corrupted data started filling the screen - there was nothing new there - but as it did, Marcus picked up Sloane's bland i.d. tag and studied it, cocking his head. "Doesn't this have the same numerical pattern as your dog tags? Three numbers, two, then three again?" 

He stared at it, and realized he was absolutely right. Why hadn't that occurred to him before? Maybe because he was too busy looking at the name, not the numbers. "So this isn't so much an i.d. as a modern dog tag, is that what you're sayin'?" 

"Somethin' like that, yeah." he then turned his glance to the screen, idly handing the tag to him, and said, "Siberia?" 

So Logan had to fill him in on that, even though he didn't want to, but Marcus just listened and nodded, with almost no reaction at all. That made him feel better, and he didn't know why. "Bob had him, huh? So he couldn't lie?" 

"Right." 

He just nodded, and then said, "I don't get Bob. I mean, how cool would it be to make people do whatever you want, and believe whatever you want them to believe? He could own the entire fucking world by now - we could all be prayin' at his altars nightly. So why does he remain under the radar? He could own the radar." 

Logan shook his head, glad Marcus decided to take that tack. It was easier to talk about Bob than what may or may not have happened in Siberia. "Bob's ... weird. He doesn't want to be worshiped; he doesn't want the world." 

"Then what does he want?" 

He had to shake his head again. "I've got no fucking idea. If I could answer that, I might actually understand him." 

Marcus just nodded and looked back at the screen. After staring at it for a moment, he pointed to a sequence of numbers that started filling a column. "I recognize those - they're military ordinance serial numbers." 

His heart skipped a beat, and he wasn't sure why. "For what? What kind of ordinance?" 

He just shook his head, clasping his hands beneath his chin. "I can't say off hand. But those numbers together there - 2006 - usually indicates classified material. To have something in your twenty means to have it in your line of sight; so combined with oh six, it means "eyes only" - only people with a security clearance of six or above can see it or know it, and six is pretty fucking high." 

Even though he was having minor, inexplicable pains in his gut, he was very glad he had brought this to him. "So this is military?" 

"It's connected to the military ... but these Org bastards could have adopted their code. It might make it easier for them to hide." 

"Lost in all the Armed Forces paperwork?" 

"Bingo. This is almost beyond Black Ops. Too bad there's no shade deeper than black, 'cause they'd be it." He finished downloading the information to his computer, and ejected the first disk. He then slipped in the second, and they both waited in silence as it loaded up. 

More scrambled words, more scrambled code. Logan had barely even scanned it, as he was too eager to leave the mansion, but it looked even worse off than the first disk. "Somebody toasted these, didn't they?" Marcus commented. 

"Toasted?" 

"I have a built in analyzer, and it's showing damage due to magnetic exposure." 

"Huh. Well I know Magneto's still in prison." 

"Coulda got hit with a pulse or something. Magneto ain't the only thing that can throw magnetism around. Whoa." 

"What?" 

Marcus touched the screen where several jumbled words made up an incoherent sentence. "I've seen this before." Logan looked. The line he was pointing at read: if the and series once but and the is weapon x if is it detained to point condition when. His fingertip was beneath weapon x. 

"What does that mean?" For some reason, Logan's heart not only skipped a beat but seemed to launch itself straight into his throat. But why? It meant nothing to him. 

"No fuckin' clue - some ultra hush hush super weapon project I found a reference to in a shredded, blacked out memo at the remains of an old base down in Mexico. "Weapon X" - I don't know if it's plain old X or Roman numeral ten - seemed to freak a lot of people out, but from what little I've pieced together, it ended in disaster." 

"What kind of disaster?" 

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not sure if it worked for a while and then exploded, or never worked in the first place, but if anyone knows about it, they're dead or just too terrified to open their mouths." 

"Shit." He had the oddest feeling this should mean something to him, but it didn't, just like Sloane didn't. He took another swig of his beer and tried to think, but was no more successful than usual. "Ever discover a connection to Siberia?" 

Marcus shook his head, combing the data with greater intensity this time. His shoulders hunched as he leaned forward, and he got the feeling this had fed into one of his personal mysteries. He probably knew more about the Organization than even Bob, and that was saying something. "No. No connection to anything. It's just a code word that would probably freak out the right people, if I ever found anyone who knew something about it." 

That was a little less than encouraging. "What do you think this all means?" 

Marcus had to think about that for a long moment. "I think these were top secret files, probably related to your time with the Org. But I bet you guessed that yourself." 

"Files that got destroyed." 

"Not completely. There's gotta be some hint that will lead us to the next logical step." 

Logan sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. His whole life seemed to be logical progression from one clue to another, and yet ultimately it never added up to much. Again, like him. 

"Oh hey - speak of the devil," Marcus said. 

He opened his eyes and looked at the screen, but saw nothing but more jumbles of letters and numbers, his past reduced to digital garbage. Maybe that was for the best - maybe there was nothing worth remembering. ( Beyond Mariko. ) "What?" 

"I just saw the word Shadowcaster." 

"That's two words." 

"Normally. But smushed into one it's the code name of a former secret base in Montana." 

He wished he knew how to take pronouncements like that. "You been there?" 

"Sort of. It was the dead of winter, and clearly the trail was cold - the base had been destroyed long before - so I just sorta blew it off, figuring I'd come back to it when it all wasn't knee deep in snow." 

"Did you?" 

"Not yet." He glanced at him. "Up for a trip to Montana?" 

He shrugged. "Don't have much choice in the matter, do I? Do you think we'll find anything?" 

Marcus started downloading the second disk, and gave him another variety of his shit eating grin, this one more sly than anything else. "Fuck if I know, man. But it's a place to start, ain't it?" 

Logan could only nod; it was at least something to go on, even if it was a dead end. Another dead end trip in a dead end life. 

Man, he really had to lay off the British beer. 

7 

    To say it was interesting viewing was an understatement. 

Marcus Drury, a/k/a Scorpion, was the worst possible person Wolverine could have gone to, at least from their perspective. He was known to be a snooper, but all the intell they had suggested he hadn't found anything useful or worthwhile. Obviously they had been wrong. 

Thanks to a telepath, he was able to eavesdrop on Oracle's "vision", and Reaper was glad that he did. It had been very enlightening. 

And how funny was it when Scorpion mentioned Weapon X, and Logan just stared at him like he had no idea what it was? Priceless. He wondered how Scorpion would react if he knew he was talking to it. 

There had been an attempt to recruit Scorpion some time ago, but Shrike had gotten closer than anyone to succeeding; Scorpion was just too slippery, too paranoid, and too tough as a target. He'd spent most of his life underground - ironic, considering he was a military brat - and there was some evidence to support that his parents helped hide him from scrutiny. No wonder he was so familiar with military ordinance and weapons; he was born into that world. 

And now, with Wolverine, he was going to Shadowcaster. 

He shook his head as he looked out the window, down at the concrete courtyard, where the filtered sunlight seemed to highlight the monochromatic grey, and even made the water spilling from the circular fountain in the center seem flat and dull, like recycled grey water run off. He could see the reflection of Spike in the pane of glass, waiting for his orders. 

"I want a larger strike team assembled for a hard target termination." 

The dark young man seemed to do the slightest of double takes. "Terminating Wolverine is pretty damn hard, sir." 

"Oh, I know. It's Scorpion I want terminated," he explained. There was no way he was mouthing the cliché "he knows too much", but he clearly did. If he ever connected the dots of his scattershot information, they'd be in trouble. "I want Logan captured. He wants to know about his past, does he? Let's show him a bit." 

Spike - what was his real name? Sanjay? He knew once, but he couldn't remember now, as it had been so long since he bothered to use it - cocked his head and stared at him curiously. "What do you mean?" 

"Don't worry, it won't be of any use to him, or at all enlightening." It would also keep him out of his hair while he set things in motion; Wolverine was a distraction he didn't need, even if he was at a loss as to what was actually going on. "Do we have a teleporter on stand by?" 

"A couple. Why?" 

"Activate the one closest to Shadowcaster. I want them to bring in the strike team after Wolverine and Scorpion have arrived at the at the target." 

"After?" 

"Wolverine could smell a team in waiting, and Scorpion could pick up their heat signatures. A traditional ambush will not work with them, so we ambush them in an untraditional way. Do we have any of that adamantium body armor from Canada?" 

Spike shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other, but the bad news was worse than he thought. "That program was suspended for retooling." 

"What the hell for?" 

"Apparently the suits were so uncomfortable and had such poor ventilation soldiers often passed out after twenty minutes or so. Also, they were very heavy and restricted movement and vision, and several soldiers fell very ill from what seemed to be adamantium poisoning - " 

He turned back and glared at him in disbelief. "Are you saying health and safety shut it down?" 

Spike nodded, trying not to meet his gaze. "That's about the size of it." 

He snorted disdainfully and looked back out at the dreary quad, where even the maples and poplars lining the outer fringes of the courtyard looked anemic and sad, as if slowly dying from a wasting disease. Maybe they were; everything would eventually. "Load them up with all the body armor we have, as Scorpion's known for his heavy weaponry, but remind them that physical combat with either is unwise. Scorpion's touch is poisonous and he has had full combat training; and Wolverine is a living, breathing killing machine, just like we made him. They must pick them off from a distance. and the first one to bring Wolverine down  gets a bonus." The irony that that stupid fuck was walking around with a hundred pounds of adamantium in him and their guys couldn't even wear fifty pounds of the stuff without getting ill was bitter and far from amusing. 

Spike bowed ever so slightly, hands clasped behind his band, and pivoted smoothly on his heels to go, as quiet as a breeze. You had to love that in an aide - obedience and silence. 

But before he was out the door, he added, "Send Delirium with the team." 

He saw Spike's reflection in the glass pause, stare at him with his deep brown eyes wide and shocked. "Delirium? Sir,she's not - " 

"I wasn't asking for opinions, Spike. Send her with the team. She knows what she has to do." And she did; she was insane, but not so crazy he couldn't get through to her. 

Spike nodded and turned away, but he had a look on his face suggesting he didn't like this turn of events. 

So fucking what? 

*** 

    Marcus insisted he hadn't stole the plane, but Logan didn't exactly believe him. 

Still, Marcus seemed to know what he was doing at the controls, so he left him to fly the small plane as he went in the back, ostensibly to check on their "supplies", as Marc euphemistically called them ( well, obviously it had been his plane for a little while - there was a footlocker full of weaponry here ). But he sat on the floor ( the plane was so small he could only stand up near the front portion of the plane; it narrowed dramatically near the tail ) staring at a cell phone that Marc said would work up here as long as   
the signal light on its side was green. It was still, so he supposed he had too make a choice. Be a chickenshit, or not be a chickenshit? "Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of fucking assholes, or make a goddamn phone call," he muttered to himself, although he wasn't nearly as amused by his Shakespearian revision as he thought he might be. 

"What?" Marcus shouted from the cabin. These small planes were noisier than he thought - or maybe it was just this plane. 

"Just talkin' to myself." 

"The second sign of insanity." 

"I thought it was the first." 

"No, talking to your toaster and expecting an answer is the first," Marcus said, adjusting the headphones on his ears; they fit funny due to his wraparound goggles. He was listening to air traffic, just to see if they were "expected", or about to encounter any resistance. From the air? Logan didn't think it likely, but Marcus was like that, so if it made him happy, fine. 

"I bet you do that a lot," he replied sarcastically. 

"Nope. Don't own a toaster. Nasty creatures." 

Logan shook his head, and snorted a small laugh. Marcus was insane, but he figured that gave them an edge. He then looked down at the phone in his hands, and figured fuck it - what was a phone call? He punched up the number and waited, aware that the signal was going to be shitty even if he could get a connection from here. 

The phone rang three times - sounding like a bell heard from the bottom of a very deep well in the midst of a hurricane - and then a tinny female voice said, "Damn it, Logan, where are you?" 

He thought only Xavier could know who was on the phone before he picked it up. "In the air." 

"I'm serious." Jean replied icily. 

"So am I. Can't you tell by the shitty connection? I'm on a plane." 

"A plane? To where?" 

"Uh, Montana. Listen, before we get cut off, I just want you to know Marcus thinks there's an abandoned  base there, Shadowcaster, that might have a connection to the disks." 

"Just you and Marcus are going?" 

"Don't worry, we can take care of ourselves. But if you don't hear from us in ... hey Marcus, where the hell are we now?" 

"It's so flat, empty and white down there - my guess is we're over a Dakota," he replied cheerfully. 

"Six hours,"he guessed, listening to the static rise and fall on the line like a distant tide. Static ... why was that name familiar to him? "Then maybe you guys can run a check or somethin'. I'm callin' Bob too, so maybe you can touch base with him first." 

"Is he in any shape?" 

Logan had been wondering that himself. "I think Bob is Bob, and he always does what you don't expect him to do." 

There was a beat of silence, and  only the static told him the connection was still open. "That's true. I still don't like this. You could be going into a trap." 

"I know," he sighed. "But I hafta go." 

She sighed, although it was almost lost in all the interference. He was pretty sure he heard her mutter, "Men." 

He read off the phone number on the cell so she could call him in case they recovered something new off the disks, and she said, "I wish you wouldn't do this." 

"I know." In a strange way, he wished he wouldn't do this too, but he had to find out if anything was there. Parts of his past had to exist somewhere; it couldn't all be gone. 

"Oh, and if you ever punch Scott again, I'll hit you with a telekinetic blast so hard you'll wake up in the middle of next week." 

He told 'Clops he was better off siccing his girlfriend on him - this proved it. "He started it," he replied, aware it sounded lame even though it was true. "Besides, I didn't hit him that hard ... I could've busted his jaw, but I didn't, did I?" 

"And you want me to give you credit for that?" She replied bitterly. 

He rolled his eyes, and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe taking care of old One Eye made her feel useful. "Listen, connection's breaking up - " No it wasn't, no more than usual, but he was done with this conversation. " - I'll call you when I can." 

"Logan - " she said, and he had a feeling she knew he was lying about the phone line. But she let it go. "Be careful. We're here to help if you need us, all right?" 

"Yeah, got it." He didn't know what else to say, so he simply cut the connection. 

"And you want this woman for what, Logan? Prove a point? Tweak visor face?" Marcus asked. 

"Please shut up and fly," he snapped, punching up Bob's number. 

"Mister Sensitive," he replied, clearly amused by him. 

The phone rang five times, and then a machine kicked in, but rather than Bob's usual flippant message, it was Helga's voice that greeted him this time. "Look, we're on vacation, the old man needed a break whether he was willing to admit it or not. We're checkin' messages, so if it's important, we'll get back to ya. You know the drill, so, whatever." He held the phone away, in case he got the air horn in place of the beep, but this time there was a gong with a slow, resonant fade. Very soothing. Must have been Bob's idea, because he couldn't imagine Helga ever going for quiet and peaceful. 


	5. Part 5

He knew, if he had any sense at all, he should be in love with Helga. She just eschewed bullshit, was as sexy as hell ( tail or not ), could kick major ass, and was one of the most reasonable people he'd ever met; keeping sex and emotions separate was second nature to her. Maybe he was and he didn't really know  it; he had no idea. But sometimes all she did was make him feel so very sad, and he had no idea why. 

"Hey, uh, it's me. Look, I may be about to get myself in a shitload of trouble at a base called Shadowcaster in Montana; check in with Xavier, he can probably give you the details. Just thought I'd give you the head's up in case I need you to save my sorry ass. But it may not be necessary ... take care of him, Hel." He turned off the phone and set it aside for now, figuring he'd done all he could. Those who should be alerted in case he got caught again had been, and now there was nothing to do but wait until they reached Montana, and see what they found there. 

Or find out what was waiting for them. 

8 

    So just about everyone knew Montana was called the "big sky country", which never made sense to Logan since sky was by definition big, and everybody had a large piece of it. ( Well, except for Saint Michel that one time ... ) But now that he was here, he thought he understood. 

Where they were now, the land seemed perfectly flat and brown, running towards the horizon with an unbroken relentlessness, and the sky mirrored the wide flatness of the land - it hadn't even seemed so vast when they were up in it. He knew there were mountains somewhere in Montana, cities ( he saw some from the air ), people, but not in this corner of the State. This corner seemed perfectly desolate and empty, save for a cracked black ribbon of road that seemed to run into forever, and the more they drove, the more the landscape never seemed to change, and barely seemed to move. 

Marcus landed the plane at a tiny airstrip about fifty miles from the site, and then proceeded to rent a car under the name Carstairs Mahoney. 

"What kind of fucking name is that?" Logan asked, unable to keep from laughing. He barely managed to hold it in when he was renting the car. 

Marcus flashed him that smart ass grin, all shiny white teeth, and said, "Contrary to popular belief, when you offer someone a goofy, embarrassing name with a straight face, they really do assume it's legitimate. Oh sure, you might get a "You're shitting me," every now and then, but then you just shrug and say it's a family name. Bought and sold." 

He knew he was serious, but Marcus was almost as funny as Bob. "But you don't look like a Mahoney." 

"I don't know - sometimes I sure feel like one." He then gave him a cheesy grin that made him laugh. No, he had no idea what that meant, but sometimes he was sure he felt like a Mahoney too. Maybe he knew that, because on the way to their rental Miata, he added, "And if anyone asks, you're my brother, Rutiger." 

Logan had to laugh for a minute before he could talk. He didn't even want to know where he got Rutiger from, or why he thought it would apply to him. "Brother?" 

"Hey, you said it - we're all brothers, right?" 

"Not like that." He paused, then asked, "Why not Logan Mahoney?" 

He scoffed derisively. "Now that's just a stupid name." 

What was it with everyone thinking they were comedians? 

It got worse. Once they started driving, Marcus started searching for a radio station, but what little could come in was unimpressive. He paused briefly on a country western station, and howled with a bad shit kicker accent, "Been buggerin' sheep all mornin', lord I miss you woman." 

He stared at his grinning profile, and said, "My god, you're enjoying this." 

"Course I am," Marcus agreed, thankfully changing the station. "Aren't you? Come on, you love trouble as much as I do." 

"So you're expecting trouble? You think someone will be waitin' for us?" 

In between all the static ( that word again! ), he occasionally found stations. One was playing what he thought of as dentist office waiting room music, another old rock songs ( Isley Brothers ), and one was a talk radio station that, as he flipped to it and away, was obviously discussing mutants. The snippet of dialogue he heard as Marc came across it was a prissy sounding woman saying, " - I don't want some filthy mutant sitting next to my child. Do you? -" before he moved on to a pop station ( he supposed it could have been worse than Matchbox Twenty, but he wasn't sure how ). Marcus gave up for now, turning the radio off. "Well, that would be the best case scenario, but most likely it'll just be us and a few prairie pies." 

"And base fragments?" 

"Big ol' base fragments," he agreed. 

They road in silence for several moments, the distressingly leaf blower like hum of the engine filling the car, and then Marcus said, "Why don't you have a look in my bag?" 

He had his nearly trademark oversized duffle bag in the back, that clanked when you picked it up, and weighed about two hundred pounds. Of course it was full of weapons; Logan could smell the gun oil. "Why should I?" 

"Get some weapons ready for us. I'm sure they're all loaded, but the safeties are probably on." 

"I don't need any weapons." 

"Yes you do. For once in your life, be ready to pick off some asshole from a distance. We have weapons up close but we're fucked if they got a guy who can vomit lava or something. And then there's soldier fucks with their sniper rifles ... " 

"I don't care about bullets." 

"I do, or would you like to see my guts splattered all over you?" 

"I thought you had a flak jacket." 

"I do. But if they got armor piercers I'm fucked. So look already." 

Logan sighed and reached back, unzipped the duffle, and started pulling out weapons at random. Mostly they seemed to be automatic hand guns, although he saw at least one snub nosed Uzi, and there had to be enough ammo to take out the Ukrainian army. "There's at least one grenade in there too, but I'm runnin' low," Marcus said, as if it was normal for everyone to carry a stash of them in their luggage. "I brought a flash bang, but maybe I shouldn't use it around you." 

"Just warn me before you do; I'll get over it." A flash bang was a grenade that did just that - rather than explode in a traditional manner, it emitted a ( temporarily ) blinding burst of white light and an extremely loud noise, both of which were meant to disorient an opponent as opposed to kill them. With senses such as his, it would probably make his eardrums burst, but he'd been taught by Legion that deafness for him was usually temporary. 

He popped the clip on a Glock, made sure it was full, then slammed it back in and took off the safety, handing it butt first to Marcus. After he took it, Logan checked a second gun, and Marcus said, "And you're tellin' me you've never handled guns before?" 

"I did once, at that gas station up in the mountains, with Naomi." Just admitting that seemed to cast a pall over the entire car. The landscape outside was starting to change, with rolling brown hills slowly coming into view, and they passed a sprawling, weather beaten farm, where cows stared at the dully through the mesh of a fence in the process of a gradual collapse. He suddenly remembered Elena explaining away her handgun proficiency as being due to the fact that she was a "Montana rancher's daughter". He wondered if he kept her from killing herself if they could have found a way to save her from the designer illness in her bloodstream. No, probably not. But it brought to mind a litany of all the women he had failed in his life: Mariko, Elena, Naomi. There were surely more, but he didn't really want to follow this line of thought anymore. ( Sloane - did he fail her too? ) 

He went back to taking the safety off another Glock and handing it to Marcus, as he knew one gun wasn't about to satisfy him. He took it, then asked, "Have you seen her since then?" 

"Once." Another topic he didn't want to discuss. He was checking a third Glock when he realized he didn't need to. Still, he found himself studying the bullets in the clip, as they looked different somehow. 

"How's she doing?" 

"She's living her life. Hey, what kind of bullets are these?" 

"Hollow point fragmenting armor piercers; guarantees almost any hit is lethal." Logan had no idea so much could be crammed in a single bullet. "Only the once? Did you ever even tell her you two used to do the horizontal mambo?" 

He slammed the ammo clip back in the gun and shook his head. "You're a poet, Marc." He made to put the gun in the bag, but  he said, "Give it to me - I can carry three. And I want you to carry at least one. Plus, I'm a philosopher, not a poet." 

"Oh, that's right. I guess you're the only philosophy degreed mercenary out there." 

"Probably. Most jobs for philosophy majors usually involve the phrase "do you want fries with that?" so I feel pretty lucky. And you are taking a gun, if only for my safety, so do it before I start reciting Descartes at you." 

"That's low, sinking to the French." He carped, reaching back for another gun. He assumed he wanted him to have a gun to cover him (  the "protection" comment  ), and he figured the least he could do was humor him. "Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am," he muttered, as that had suddenly occurred to him, although he wasn't sure why. 

Marcus laughed, then added, "Socrates himself is particularly missed. A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed. How in the hell do you know "The Philosopher's Drinking Song"?" 

"Is that what it is?" He checked the ammo, took off the safety, and laid the gun on his lap. 

"We need extra ammo clips. Yeah, you didn't remember? Like Monty Python?" 

"Yeah. Why?" 

"That's it, then. It's a Monty Python song." 

"Oh." Weird how he couldn't exactly remember it, and yet the line occurred to him.Him and his fucked up little mind. He grabbed up four ammo clips , tossing three to Marcus and keeping one for himself. "You're gonna be disappointed if nothin' happens, aren't ya?" 

He shrugged. "Maybe. But our luck doesn't usually run like that, does it?" 

That was a damn good point. 

9 

    It didn't take long to share the details of their conversation with the Professor, but then again there hadn't been much to it. 

Jean always looked forward to this time of day - just a little quiet, reflective time in the Professor's office, nestled in the corner of his comfy leather sofa with a cup of lemon tea, just discussing - aloud or otherwise - the events of the day. She had her legs folded up beneath her, her cup of tea resting on the sofa arm, and while she should have been relaxing, she was still tense. It was everything that had happened, of course, but the knowledge of that didn't make it easy to dismiss. 

Scott was sleeping off his tylenol codeine, the students were enjoying some free time - unaware of the dead body in the lower levels, or anything else that had happened - and the Professor was behind his desk with his cup of peppermint tea, but was intently at work on the computer, still putting together that program that would, hopefully, bring coherence to the scrambled data. She had no idea he was that proficient with computers, but come to think of it, he was the smartest man she had ever met; there was probably precious little he couldn't do. "How much do you know about Marcus?" She wondered. She didn't know much about him at all - a "friend" of Logan's, he apparently aided him in emptying out that base in Nevada, and escaping a rogue, potentially insane telepath named "Shrike" ( although she had picked up that Electra, nee Naomi Deschanel, had actually killed Shrike with a bolt of electricity after Shrike shot Logan and punctured his lungs. Logan had never really talked about it at all, and when she tried to bring it up claimed he killed Shrike - that should have been her first clue he cared for Naomi; he'd been trying to cover up for her. As much as she detested violence and death, she couldn't claim she wouldn't have done the same thing in Naomi's shoes ). Marcus had also been in on something that involved Bob in Death Valley, but they knew almost zero about that, as Logan still didn't share much with them. She had a telepathic image of Marcus she had accidentally gleamed telepathically from Logan ( accidents happened ), and he was an extremely burly, muscular man with a penchant for wearing dark glasses ( he had infrared vision - that figured ) and black leather gloves ( poison glands under his fingernails - that also figured ). 

"He's a ..." Xavier hesitated, which was rare for him to do. "... an interesting man." 

"Interesting?" That wasn't a word he usually used in a positive manner. "How so?" 

"He and Logan probably have much in common." 

"Do you mean he has a temper?" 

"I don't know. I only know he is not adverse to violence." In the blue light of the computer screen, he looked eerie, almost like a ghost. 

"Oh." That was even worse than she thought. "Do you think they're bound for trouble or looking for it?" 

Xavier smiled wryly, and replied, "Some philosophers might argue that's the same thing." 

Possibly. As if Logan wasn't in enough trouble as it was. "Perhaps I could - " 

"No," he interrupted. "If you'd like, I will use Cerebro later and make sure Logan is all right." 

She scowled at him, but he was still looking at the screen, not her. "I can do it, Professor." 

"You could hurt yourself, Jean, and I think enough people have been hurt as it is." 

"I wasn't hurt before." 

"Not permanently, but you got lucky. I realize your powers are growing, but - " He trailed off so suddenly she stared at him, only to see him gazing at the computer screen with a haunted, grim expression on his face. She could feel the shift in his mood, something caught between fear, anger, and a sort of resolved disappointment. 

"What is it?" 

"The word arsenal just popped up on the screen." 

Arsenal - the project where the government tried to forcefully recruit Xavier to act as a weapon for them almost fifty years ago. A project that also involved demons. But it was dead, and had been dead all this time. Right? "It could be just the word, not a reference to the program." 

He nodded, but his look didn't improve. "I know. It just seems like a coincidence." 

It did, and not a good one. She settled back against the couch, and picked up her cup of tea, letting it warm her hands through its delicate china form. "It's  bad enough they hate us - they have  to try and use us too?" 

"It's easier for some people to think of us as objects rather than fellow human beings," Xavier replied evenly. "That way we can be swept under the carpet, used, or arbitrarily punished without it bothering their conscience." 

True, but it did absolutely nothing to assuage her anxiety. What exactly were Logan and Marcus heading into? And would they be able to get out of it again? 

*** 

    Marcus hadn't been kidding about the prairie pies. 

It mostly smelled like deer poop of some variety, but there was random cow shit, sheep crap, and even wolf dung scattered about the lea, which was about the size of a football field. There were also what appeared to be corroded chunks of metal strewn everywhere, varying in size from that of a dime to roughly the size of the front half of a Buick. Some may have mimicked the shape of former buildings, but it was almost impossible to say what used to be here - he was taking it on faith that this used to comprise a base. He couldn't smell much of anything beneath the animal shit and other smells that had come to contaminate this place over the years. 

And, much to Marc's disappointment, it was empty and untouched, having clearly been abandoned for all this time. They'd parked so far away and lugged in with all these weapons for nothing. Marcus kicked over a large piece of metal that was in a sort of dome shape, making several voles scatter, but there seemed to be nothing but a few weeds and more fragments of metal lurking underneath. "I swear there used to be more here," Marcus claimed. 

"Ever seen this place when it wasn't ass deep in snow?" 

He paused and looked around, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, now that you mention it - " 

Logan threw up his hands in disgust. "So you're telling me we came all this way to look at scrap metal?" He shook his head and walked away, kicking fist sized, warped metal fragments towards a dried up drainage ditch on the far side of the field. Patches of long yellow grass seemed to shiver as the Northern wind picked up, and a flat grey scrim of clouds started to hem in the sky. It was going to rain soon, and probably turn this place into a mud pit. "Are we the stupidest men on the goddamn planet?" 

"That's only occurred to you now? Look, there was more here. Unless someone moved a small hill, there was crap here that ain't here anymore. Are you sure you don't smell people?" 

"No,I don't . I smell several varieties of shit, but no people, except for our lame asses." 

Marcus looked around helplessly. "I was sure there used to be a kind of a - " He made a very vague hand gesture towards the center of the field. " - thingy there." 

He glared at him, not bothering to hide his disdain. "Thingy? Were there doohickeys and whatchamacallits around here too?" 

Even thought his eyes were hidden by his black welding goggles, he knew Marcus was giving him a death stare. "I'm tryin' to help you here, asshole. I'm sorry if it's not living up to your expectations." 

"I thought help was supposed to be helpful," he snapped, wondering if anyone's luck was quite as bad as this. 

And as if just to prove a point, it was like reality blinked, and about fifteen men in black body armor materialized out of nowhere thirty feet away, along with a civilian who was too pasty pale white to be anything but a mutant ( or maybe an albino ), and another near the back, a girl whose hair was half lavender and half silver. It was so sudden, shocking, and quiet it seemed unreal, but even as the men raised their automatic weapons, Marcus had pulled two of his guns, and Logan rushed them, popping his claws and launching himself at them with an angry roar. 

It wasn't an answer, but it was close enough. 

10 

    He hardly felt the bullets. 

They were hard punches, stings that tore through his flesh and muscle, sometimes bouncing off bone with an impact like Scott was taking potshots at him ( adamantium bullets? ), but it wasn't enough to slow him down. 

The men may have tried to break up, but Logan moved too fast and the bulk remained in a group, so as soon as he was within claw's reach, he took out about four guns and an equal number of body parts. There were screams and shouts, and while they kept shooting at him, they were distracted from shooting at Marcus, who, by the sound of it , was shooting back while on the move. Judging by the sound he had also hit a few, and since shots were now coming from a different direction, he knew this group had only been the first wave. Shit. 

He slashed and kicked at anything that moved, and judging from the blood and shouts and grunts of pain he was hitting targets. He could feel his skin being sliced, hard blows to the body, some shots to the head hard enough to make lights explode in front of his eyes, but he didn't stop; he couldn't stop. He was carried away with an angry momentum, and nothing short of a crippling blow was going to phase him now. 

The albino was gone from where he had seen him last, but he hadn't seen him move - where the hell had he gone? He slashed two men aside and kicked one in the gut when he suddenly sensed someone behind him. Two more soldiers were lunging for him, so he didn't bother to turn around, he just threw back a hard elbow that caught someone in the face solidly enough to audibly break a bone. Once he had tossed the two soldiers aside like sacks of garbage, he turned around and saw he had nailed the albino. What the fuck? How the hell did he get behind him so fast? Maybe he was the one who teleported everybody in - he didn't know if any mutants could teleport, but why the hell not? There seemed to be a mutation for everything else. 

He took an adamantium bullet point blank in the gut as he ran a soldier through with his claws, tearing through his body armor like wet paper, and it hurt so much it almost dropped him to his knees. It must have been a bullet like Marcus had, not just adamantium - he could feel it rip through his organs before it hit his spinal column and stop. Even as he kicked one charging soldier in the jaw and raked another one across the face, he kept one arm wrapped around the new hole in his gut. It hurt, but now the healing was making it hurt even worse; in fact, his whole body felt like it was on fire from the healing process. He'd taken a lot of damage, and he was going to need to stop that soon if he didn't want his body to give up on him and collapse. 

The clot of soldiers had thinned dramatically, and he found his nearest opponent was a thick necked civilian who was apparently unarmed, but still he held his hands out towards him anyways. Logan guessed that was bad, but before he could react, he was hit by an invisible force that instantly threw him off his feet. 

Even though he was flying through the air, he knew roughly where he was going, so as soon as he hit the ground he rolled with it, and rolled right into the drainage ditch. He landed badly, on his neck, so he just laid there on his back, staring up at the grey ceiling of the sky. His whole body seemed to burn, but he grabbed the gun stashed in his waistband and pulled it out as he heard approaching footsteps, and as soon as a shadow fell over him, he fired. There was a yelp and someone fell back heavily -  he had no idea if it was the mutie or another soldier. 

"Great," Marcus grumbled, crawling over towards him. "A guy who shoots concussive blasts from his hands." 

"Is that what it was?" 

"Hasn't he heard all us mutants are brothers bullshit? Fuck, you been super - perforated, haven't you? Gonna be okay?" 

"I'm healin'. You?" 

"Coupla nicks, nothing major." He blindly shot over the top of the ditch, and he hit a couple while the rest scattered, falling back to safer positions. "Good job nailin' the 'porter, but, dude, we're completely, royally fucked." 

"They keep coming, don't they?" 

"Totally." 

"Seen the weird haired girl?" 

"Huh? No - you didn't take her out?" 

"No. I haven't seen her since the beginning of the fight." 

"Huh. Maybe she's another 'porter, and she keeps bringin' these guys in. Anyways, I think we only have one shot here." 

"Alamo stand?" 

"Fuck no - you think these guys really want to fight us to our deaths? I think we'd be lucky if that were the case." 

That was a good point. Some of the burning of  the healing process had stopped in his face and torso, so he felt a little stronger, but his gut still hurt like fuck. He wondered how much blood he could lose before it really started to effect him. "Surrender is not an option." 

"Agreed. I'm thinkin' a Paris defense." 

"That's surrender." 

"Is it? I thought it was beating cheeks." 

"No, that's the Holy Grail defense." 

Marcus snickered, and then said, in his best phony English accent, "Run away, run away." He then reverted back to his normal voice, which, oddly enough, always had a touch of California surfer. " Yeah, you're right. And here I was the one that had to remind you about Monty Python in the car." Marcus held something over his face. "Well enough to throw?" 

Logan reached up and took it from him; it was one of the grenades, but he wasn't sure if it was the normal or the flash bang. "I'll throw North,  you throw South, and then we run like hell. Got a better idea?" 

"Not in the least." 

He blindly fired another burst from the ditch, and this time there was a response, although the bullets all hit the ground and did little more than spit dirt into their faces. "Ready?" 

Logan grunted, shoving himself up to his elbows, and then moved into a crouch. It still felt like he had a piece of hot shrapnel in his belly, but he could live with it. "As I'll ever be." 

"Good enough." Marcus pulled the pin, so Logan did the same. They waited a beat, then tossed them out in opposite directions. 

Someone yelled, "Incoming!" as they both ducked, and the world seemed to explode. Logan's eardrums remained intact, but he was temporarily deafened, at least figuring from the hollow white noise that rushed into his head. But he could live with it. 

They both vaulted out of the ditch on the opposite side and ran for it, and there was a huge cloud of smoke and dirt fragments still hanging in the air, screening them for the moment. But Logan knew it wouldn't last long, and if there was a teleporter still working with the troops, they would be in deep shit until they were out of the fucking State. 

They started firing randomly - always a good strategy - and Marcus started firing back blindly with both guns, spraying bullets in a wide arc and emptying the clips. "Suddenly we're the mutant Bonnie and Clyde," he said, giving him that cheesy grin. 

He was about to point out what happened to them ( and there was no way he was Bonnie ), when something exploded out of Marcus's chest in a spray of red, with a wet noise that almost smothered the sound of something cracking inside his body armor. They both stopped and stared at each other in abject horror as Marcus said, "Oh fuck." 

He started to fall towards the ground, but Logan caught him, dropping the gun he no longer cared about. Marcus was heavy enough that he dropped to one knee, still holding him by the shoulders, and he felt warm blood spill out of the hole in his back and drench his pantleg with gore. 

The wound wasn't bad; it was fatal. A hole the size of fingertip in the back had become a hole the size of a grapefruit in the chest; an expanding slug, just like he had in his guns, and an armor piercer as well. Logan felt equally enraged and ill - he had killed him. He had led yet another person, one of the few friends he had, to their death. And for what - what?! There had been nothing here! 

Marcus looked up at him, eyes barely visible beneath the thick black goggles, and said, "Go. It's only me they want dead." If he looked in the hole in his chest, he could seem a white gleam of bone among the muscles and deeply red blood. He wished it was a new sight, but Logan knew it was familiar somehow. He may as well have been a coroner. 

Logan knew that what Marcus said was probably true, but he was so furious - at them, at himself - he didn't care. "I ain't leavin' you here," he said, wrapping one of Marcus's thick arms around his shoulders, in preparation for hauling him up. 

"Oh, you fucking stupid bastard, you can't get anywhere with me," he argued weakly, unable to fight even as he grabbed his waist firmly and lifted him up. "Save yourself - leave me." 

"Fuck you," he snapped, just as he heard a soft plop in the dirt a few feet away from them. He hardly needed to turn to confirm it was an explosive, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. 

He was looking at it when it went off, and the blinding white light seemed to stab straight through his eyes and into the back of his brain long before it turned the world to black. 

11 

    He came to sure he had been trampled by a herd of buffalo, the taste of blood in his mouth old and tacky. 

It was his blood, right? 

Oddly enough, the smell of leather was almost suffocating, but it was quickly obvious was why: he had something like a stiff leather gag wrapped tightly around his mouth. His hands were tightly shackled behind him, and just by trying them, he knew they were adamantium, and so tight they were already slicing into his skin. The chair he was sitting in was metal - by the scent, at least adamantium plated - and bolted to the floor; his ankles were also shackled to the legs of the chair. He tried to shift, move, but all he managed to accomplish was tearing open the skin on his wrists some more. What was the gag about? Were they afraid, since he couldn't move anything else, he'd try and bite them? Or did they just think his screaming would disturb the neighbors? 

There were no lights on, but he could see well enough to know he was in a small metal room, maybe eight feet by ten, empty save for him and the bolted down chair. There was a small seam in the wall about five feet in front of him, and he imagined that's what passed for a door. 

After a moment, it slid open, and filled the room with a pale yellow light that was still far too bright for his dark adjusted eyes. So he closed them until the door slid shut, and opened them with golden afterimages still burnt into his retinas. There was a tall, slender man standing before him, holding something that  may have been a gun or a type of injection needle. "Wolverine - wow, isn't this a blast from the past? I bet you never expected to see me again. Oh, wait, you don't even remember me, do you?" 

He wanted to tell the man to fuck off; he wanted to ask where Marcus was ( maybe they saved him - was it completely beyond the realm of possibility? ); he wanted to ask how he knew him. But he couldn't do any of that, not with the gag over his mouth. He still tried to sound out "Fuck you," and hope he figured it out. 

He must have. The man, who must have been wearing glasses, chuckled. "Such ungratefulness. And here I was, going to help you piece together your past. You're curious, aren't you?" He took a few steps closer, and his aftershave seemed to wash over him like a noxious wave. "Did you know you were classified with the mutants we called "monsters" because of their powers? But you were the only one in the category who wasn't there because of his powers - come on, healing factor? Claws? Slightly better than average strength? Lame. You were a monster because of your temper. Homicidal never even began to describe it." 

He wished he'd take the gag off. He'd show him homicidal. 

"Psychotic? Well, that was much closer. You were definitely insane, and therefore perfect for molding. We didn't even need to wipe out that many memories - you were so loco you didn't actually remember all that much." 

Logan didn't want to believe a single thing this bastard said, and he tried not to listen ... but was it so hard to believe he was insane before he fell into their hands? That would explain so much ... 

"It may not be the smartest thing in the world, but we're curious to see how much of you we can bring back. What do you think, Wolverine? Interested in a stroll through the past?" 

He realized there was a sinister edge to "see how much of you we can bring back". They were going to try and resurrect the "Wolverine" personality, weren't they? The one incapable of thinking himself as anything but a killer - their killer. Even as the man reached for him he tried to turn his head away, tried to shake his hand off even as the man grabbed a handful of his hair and forced his head to the side; Logan tried to pull free, feeling the hair tear from his scalp, blood trickling down before the skin healed shut, but it was too late. He heard the hiss of the injection gun, felt the sting of a needle piercing an artery on the side of his neck, and the man stepped away as Logan pulled his head straight, trying to shake away the effects of the drug. His immune system would metabolize it, right? It wouldn't work. 

But he could feel it, a slow warmth infusing his bloodstream, and he knew they had compensated for that. Of course they had - and why else would they have an adamantium chair with built in shackles? They were waiting for him. They had been ready for him for some time. 

They had been waiting for their sleeper to awaken. 


	6. Part 6

*** 

    The water was cold, even through his insulated wet suit, so he supposed it made sense that they wouldn't be expecting anyone to come from here. 

In the dark murk of the water he could see the trunk thick pylons of the private pier, and he surfaced beneath it, taking a quiet breath, eyes adjusting from the darkness of the water to the darkness of the gelid night. 

He simply floated ( well, as best he could ) and listened, the icy water slapping against the pylons almost unbearably loud and painfully briny as he opened up his senses, but he managed to cope as he tried to listen beyond it.  He could hear - on the boardwalk, not the pier - five guards, four of whom were smoking ( three were smoking Marlboros; someone else was smoking menthols ), and two of whom were talking. One had had French onion soup and a Porterhouse steak for dinner; another was actually wearing Hai Karate cologne, which he thought someone had put out of its misery long ago. Wonders just never ceased, did they? And someone was sneaking drinks too, rotgut whiskey in a flask, and was half way to toasted by now. These guys were just asking to get killed. 

The two guards who were talking had been discussing a horse race that one had gone to over the weekend, and lost two thousand dollars at, after making four hundred dollars on a previous bet. He was blaming it on "bad luck", and talked about this casino he heard about in Monte Carlo where you could win two million dollars on a single bet, and how he planned to go there and try as soon as he could save up enough money to do so. The other guard ( Hai Karate man ) just made appropriate listening noises, but was clearly thinking of something else, just letting the guy chatter like a hyperactive myna bird. 

As Wolverine reached out and grabbed the nearest pylon, Hai Karate must have reached the end of his tolerance with idiot boy, because he suddenly said, "Hey, have the radios been quiet for a while?" 

He knew they wouldn't see him from this angle until he attacked, so he started climbing up the algae slimed wooden pillar, up to the top of the well maintained pier. 

There was a crackle of static in the night as they tried their radios. "Come in Echelon," Hai Karate said, even as he was met with another sharp snap of static that was almost painful. 

He was now standing on the pier, dripping water, but no one had noticed him yet; they were all too busy trying radios that had no hope of working. His bare feet, which were so cold he had lost all feeling in them, squelched slightly as he stalked from the wood of the pier to the more solid pavement of the "boardwalk", and he suddenly he wondered how close he could get to them before they noticed they had been breached. 

As it turned out, fifteen feet. 

"Holy fuck!' One of them shouted, dropping his useless radio and swinging his automatic rifle out from beneath his arm. 

"Hold it right there! " Another guard - Hai karate man - shouted, also leveling his weapon at him. 

Wolverine snickered at them, popping his claws at his side, making them all jump. "Do you really think you got what it takes to stop me?" 

They opened fired even before he attacked, but the sting of bullets punching through him only made him happier to cut through them like the chaff they were. In under two minutes, it was all over. 

He unzipped the wet suit, now cut with bullet holes and splattered with blood, and stepped out of it, leaving it crumpled up on the boardwalk like a shed skin. The black clothes he wore underneath were dry, save for where the bullets brought up blood and let in drops of water from the outer suit, and blood squelched beneath his feet, which were now feeling the warmth from the healing process. He spotted a big enough guy and pulled off his boots, stepping into them before heading off to the place they had called Echelon. 

It looked like just another warehouse in a row of warehouses lining the boardwalk like bomb shelters in a war torn city, but one of them was different than the others; one of them held a high tech station, where they were gathering information on the Organization and the mutants that worked for them. Their purpose was doubtlessly far from benign, but he honestly didn't care - it was nice to just tear something up. He'd been getting bored. 

There were several other guards along the way, but the resistance they offered was so pathetic he barely even noticed. The echoes of static from their malfunctioning radios filled the night, overtaking the distant purr of car engines on the highway. 

Echelon had a steel door three feet thick, and a retinal scanning door lock, but two claw slashes made that quickly  irrelevant, and it was another slash fest inside as guards put up more futile resistance. Sometimes it was just pathetic. He idly wondered if there was a service out there where you could rent ineffective security officers. It certainly seemed to be a popular service. Maybe they were cheap. 

Static dropped in through a skylight as soon as he took out the guards at the main post and permanently switched off their equipment. "I thought the point of you heading the charge was to keep things quiet," she said wryly. 

"They didn't shoot for long." 

She shook her head, smiling grimly. "You're insane, you know that?" 

He grunted noncommittally. "That's why they hired me." 

"I thought it was your way with people," she said, giving him a smart ass grin and a wink. 

He made a sour face at her, and led the way through the complex, claws still extended. "We got a telepath in here," Static told him. "I've got them blocked, but I wouldn't be surprised if they make a run for it." 

"Won't get far." 

They didn't. The few people left in Echelon were cleared out easily, with Static showing that she had been trained reasonably well, although he thought her martial arts techniques were starting to get rusty. He offered to spar with her next chance they got, which led her to joke: "As soon as you get declawed." 

He really hated teaming up with comedians. 

She was mainly along not only to block their communications equipment but also to download what data they had before they torched this dump. He had thought this place was too clean somehow, but  only when they were in the main data hub did Static say, " Is there something wrong about this place?" 

"Ya noticed," he grumbled, looking around the room. Like all places where they kept major computers, it was a sterile room of white walls and control panels that never seemed to be connected to much of anything, with the computers themselves set up against one wall like a row of high tech lockers. 

Once the data dump was underway, she looked around the room, her white eyes searching the ceiling as if for a security camera. "I know you've got a better instinct than me, Wolve - what's the deal?" 

He shrugged, wondering if there were any decent bars around the hotel they were supposedly quartered in for the night. He hadn't bothered to have a look at it, as he had to get to the harbor before the patrol boats did their regular rounds. "They probably got tipped off and started attempting to clean house, but they didn't have a lot of lead time to get much done." 

She looked at him sharply, eyes narrowing in suspicion. At first it had been kinda weird - she looked blind - but he could feel her eyes upon him if not exactly see them, so he accepted the fact that she was sighted, no matter how she appeared. He knew there were still people back at HQ who did double takes when they saw her, but they  had to be idiots. There were always more to mutants than met the eye. "Are you saying someone leaked the mission?" 

"What other reason is there?" 

Concerned colored her painfully young ( looking - she couldn't be all that young ) face as she tried too think of a likely suspect. But there were so many it was impossible to chose without a little more to go on. A lot of people hated the Organization - some who still worked for them. 

Static glanced at the computer she was working on, and wondered, "Think they left a clue?" 

"I wouldn't. But people are generally stupid, so we got a pretty good shot." 

She snorted, running a hand through hair so red it looked molten under the florescent lights. "I love the way you're not cynical." 

He didn't say anything to that, but looked around in search of a clock. He wondered if the bars were still open around here. The mission was over as far as he was concerned; if someone was trying to screw the Org, he didn't care as long as they didn't try and screw him. 

Getting out was a thousand times easier than getting in, which was typical - the guards were all dead, fled, or too unconscious to care one way or another. The hotel they were quartered in was a middling tourist type, his term for a hotel above fleabag but hardly luxurious. Not that he'd know what to do with luxurious, except stand out like a sore thumb; tourist grade was bad enough. Here he was without a Hawaiian shirt. 

They had rooms connected by an inner door on the tenth floor, and the rooms were identically bland and small, with a neutral color scheme and more fake wood paneling than was healthy for anyone. He looked out his window at the lights of the city - leaving his lights off so no one on the outside could see him - as Static called in to base in the next room. 

The city looked dead. A dreary back end European town with little in the way of nightlife ( unless drunks vomiting in gutters counted as nightlife , it made him wonder why he sometimes had the most curious feeling of déjà vu. When they passed through Paris the other day, Static was unreasonably thrilled, having never been there before, but it seemed ... familiar somehow. Only the French had a word for it - déjà vu. How ironic was that? 

But when Static asked him when he'd been to France before he had to admit he didn't think he'd ever been to France before, or at least he didn't remember having ever been. What she didn't know is that he didn't remember much of anything else at all. His mind was more often than not a perfect blank, with nothing but battle tactics and moves bubbling to the surface, like he was just a robot programmed to fight. But he didn't think robots were supposed to feel as pissed off as he usually did. Sometimes all he could feel was hate; basically it was the only thing he felt. 

He had memories, of course, but they felt wrong in some way he couldn't put a finger on. It was like he had been given someone else's memories, and he had been inserted into them as an afterthought; as if someone belatedly realized he needed some kind of grounding or he'd go spinning off his axis completely. He thought about his metal claws, and wondered if he was somebody's idea of a robot. 

"Reaper thinks we should stay quartered until pick up tomorrow if there's any chance we've been compromised at all," Static announced, coming into his room. Since there had been nothing going on outside, he had moved to an armchair in the corner of the room ( out of view from the window ), and lit up a cigar. He still hadn't bothered to turn on the lights though - why? He didn't need them? 

"He would. He hasn't seen this shitty place." 

Static sighed loudly. "Do you enjoy sitting in the dark like a pervert?" 

"I am a pervert." 

She made that noise only women could make - not quite a sigh, but close, and full of disappointment. She then crossed the room and closed the curtain before making her way to the nightstand and turning on the lamp. He knew that was coming and closed his eyes, slowly opening them so they could adjust to the light. She remained standing in front of the nightstand, hands on her hips. "You're just grouchy 'cause you can't go out drinking." 

"That and I hate Reaper's smug fucking guts." He wasn't going to tell her it didn't matter - from the number of drunks he saw on the street, it was obvious the bars had already closed and were turning their refuse out. 

She fixed him with a mock stern look. He actually liked Static out of all the other losers he was generally teamed with: she was smart, obviously well trained, and wasn't much for dicking around. He liked people who weren't into bullshit, because so many people were. And he had to admit it was nice that she was so easy on the eyes, and generally smelled nice. Also, she treated him like he was Human, as opposed to just a walking Ginsu, and that was just fucking bizarre. He wasn't used to being treated as something other than a bomb about to go off. "This is new, isn't it? What happened between you two that I missed?" 

"Nothin' happened. I just can't stand it when people lie to me so blatantly." 

She cocked her head curiously, and he could feel her seemingly blind eyes scrutinizing him.  "What's he lying about?" 

"What's goin' on with him. If he is indeed him." 

After a moment of staring at him with what he guessed was disbelief, she sat down on the edge of his small, stiff looking bed. "Okay, this sounds like a long story. What the fuck do you mean by if indeed it is him?" 

He shifted uncomfortably - his shoulders were almost too wide for the confines of this narrow chair - and wondered if he should bother to tell her. Most people would dismiss him out of hand, but he didn't think Static would. "Remember when he went off for his leave of absence?" 

She had to think about it for a moment. "Last year?" 

"Naw, couple months back, after I returned from Siberia? I know he said he was goin' 'cause he was startin' to have trouble with power surges, but when he came back ... he didn't smell right." 

"What do you mean?" 

He shrugged, aware he'd never be able to explain it to anyone who couldn't smell things as he did. "Everybody's got a unique smell, darlin' - kinda like a fingerprint. Everybody smells basically the same, but everybody's scent is different. Follow me? And his scent was completely different than before." 

"Could it have been due to what they did to control his power surges?" 

He shook his head. "No way. But that's another thing - did you ever see any of these so called "power surges" of  his?" 

"No, but they guy vaporizes things at will - I'd rather not have been around him if it happened." 

"He doesn't seem any more powerful to me. He just seems like an even bigger, stiffer prick than before. In fact, a week ago, I caught him cussing in Russian. Since when the fuck does he know Russian?" 

"He was just in Kiev, wasn't he?" 

"For seventeen hours! And this wasn't a common curse - it was a pretty complicated one." 

"And you know this because ... you speak Russian?" 

"I speak almost everything." He said it matter of factly; he could. It wasn't a point of pride with him, it was just another puzzling thing he could do without knowing how he could do it. 

But obviously she didn't know that. Sure, she'd been around when he started speaking French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian, but maybe she thought he just memorized key phrases. "Really? Even Urdu?" 

He replied in the affirmative. She just stared at him, so he clarified, "That was you bet your ass in Urdu." 

"Was it really?" She paused. "You're not kidding, are you?" 

"No." 

"Shit. Is that some kind of secondary mutation?" 

"I have no fucking clue. I just can." 

She considered that a moment, picking at a loose thread on the knee of the jeans she had changed into. While her jeans looked old, the white t-shirt was so form fitting and threadbare it looked ancient. "Did you ask him about the Russian?" 

"I did, and he bullshitted me, sayin' he picked it up on the trip." 

"He could have." 

"Not likely, sister. Trust me on that." 

Static shifted on the edge of the bed, as if just this train of thought was uncomfortable. "So what do you think's going on? He can't have been replaced by a shapeshifter - the telepaths would've picked up on it." 

"Unless one of 'em's in on it." 

"In on what?" 

He threw up his hands helplessly. "Well fuck me if I know! I just know he ain't right." 

She thought about that for a minute, continuing to make the frayed hole in her jeans worse. It must have been a nervous habit. "Do you think we've been infiltrated by a hostile?" 

"I don't know. Maybe Reaper just volunteered for an experiment. But then why would they be so hush hush about it?" He didn't want to shrug again, but he couldn't help it. There was nothing else he could do. "I mentioned it to Control, but he dismissed me as if it was nothing. In fact, he actually ordered me to drop it. As if that would work." 

"So it's probably something Control is in on." 

He took a puff on his cigar and just shrugged a shoulder. "Seems that way. But I don't trust him either." 

She smiled knowingly. "Do you trust anyone?" 

That was hardly a poser. "No." 

That made her chuckle. "Not even me?" She gave him a mock wounded look, pushing her ruby lips out in an exaggerated pout. 

He raised an eyebrow at her, and when she laughed, he smiled in spite of himself. "Maybe you. But you're it." And to his surprise, he meant that. She was not, nor had she ever been, a bad kid; she didn't seem to have the agendas so many others had. Which, in itself, was instantly suspicious. Everyone had an agenda - the thing was to find someone whose agenda worked with your own. 

"Thank you, I feel privileged." She then picked up a small paper flyer off the nightstand and waved it like a flag of surrender. "Since you speak the language so well, why don't you order us up some Chinese food. Room service is closed." 

No wonder he liked her - her gall was incredible. She reminded him of himself sometimes. "And I should do this why?" 

"Because I'm starving, and if you don't, I'm going to whine and nag." 

He glared at her, but she simply glared back, and he relented with a sigh, rolling his eyes. He was hungry anyways. 

The man who answered the phone had a Cantonese accent, so he started speaking in Cantonese, aware that sometimes speaking their native language made people more instantly deferential to you. It worked; the man sounded thrilled to be talking to someone who knew the language, and Wolverine imagined it must have been a bit of a novelty in this part of Europe. 

Maybe that's why the food seemed to come pretty fast, and seemed particularly authentic and good; or at least better than he initially anticipated. Static had a bar in her room, which seemed unfair since his room didn't have one, but she figured that was because she'd need it more, being his partner ( ha ). 

Although he turned on the t.v. set for background noise ( who didn't want to see a twenty year old crappy American comedy badly dubbed? ), Static sat in his room with him and they had dinner, him still sitting in the chair, her still sitting on his bed like it was hers,legs curled beneath her, but since she was supplying the booze he didn't care. 

She was telling him about something - a mission she was on that went all bugfuck ( but she was with Shrike - how could it not go wrong? ) - but he wasn't really paying attention; he let her voice wash over her like the hum from the air conditioner in her room. But he caught things now and then, and one thing almost slipped passed him. "Who's Sloane?" 

She gave him a funny look, pausing with her chopsticks half way to her lips. "Me. That's my name - Sloane." 

"Oh." How many missions had they been on together? Maybe a dozen, more? And he knew her only as Static, her ability and her code name. 

She put her chopsticks back in her box of food, and studied him like she'd just realized he wasn't like other men. "You never knew?" 

"Has it ever come up?" 

She shrugged."I guess not. What's your name?" 

He opened his mouth to speak, and then clamped it shut, wondering what he thought he was going to say, because honestly he didn't know. That was a question he couldn't answer in any language. He glanced down at his fried rice, pretending to search for something in it with his chopsticks. "I don't know." 

He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn't dare look up. If he saw pity on her face he wouldn't be able to bear it - she thought he was Human; he didn't want her to start seeing him as a ... a ... 

( - victim - ) 

... bigger freak than he was. When he finally did look up, a mask of anger slammed protectively into place, but she was back searching through her own box of food. "We'll have to figure that out someday, huh?" She offered, and he didn't catch a trace of pity in her voice. When she did look up, chewing on a chunk of sweet and sour chicken, he didn't see any pity in her blank eyes, or anywhere else on her preternaturally youthful face. He wasn't sure if he could trust it, but he decided he might as well let it go for now. There was no point in searching for trouble when you knew you weren't going to like what you found. 

She went on chattering like nothing had happened, and he was grateful for that, although he rather wished he could feel alcohol for once in his life. He appreciated the irony - a man who didn't remember much wanting to forget everything. He actually wished she'd go away and leave him in peace, but then he wondered for what? So he could brood more? Think about everything he couldn't remember, and ponder why those things that he could were so bloody unsatisfying? He had ample time alone, and it never did him any good. 

He ate mechanically, no longer tasting anything, and gulped it down with alcohol that could only give him a brief warmth that never lasted long enough. Static did go to her own room eventually ( he just couldn't think of her as Sloane right now ), leaving him in peace, but again it felt hollow. He turned off the t.v. - he was tired of idiot noise - and the light, preferring the solitude of darkness. 

His mind fell back to Reaper, and what the hell was going on with him. His base scent was the same, so that was probably his body, but what could have happened to him? Mind control usually didn't change scent ... usually. Maybe this was a new breed of animal. 

Even though she had closed the shared door between their rooms, he knew by sound exactly where she was and what she was doing. She turned off the air conditioner; she ran a bath; she helped herself to another drink from the bar; she went and had her bath. The man in the room beneath his was currently vomiting, and Wolverine guessed he'd just came back from the bar, and had pushed his limit way too far. He decided to try and block out all the noises, as he could do without the barfing. 

Was Control using a new breed of telepath to manipulate Reaper? Why? Reaper was an annoying toady - he obeyed him without question. Control didn't need a proxy to pull his strings. So what exactly was going on?  
And what a weird coincidence he cursed in Russian - could that mean something? This did occur after he returned from Siberia ... but all he brought back was data. 

What about the soldiers who extracted him? Did they have a counter mission he knew nothing about? There seemed to be a rather large team sent to get him, and the base itself seemed remarkably meaningless compared to the size of the army guarding it. That was always suspicious. 

The inner door opened once more, and Static stood there, silhouetted from the light in her room. Her partially dried hair was piled on her head in a loose knot, and she wore a long, sheer crimson bathrobe that clung to her curvaceous figure like it was painted on. She put a hand on her hip and sighed. "Back in the dark again?" 

"I belong here." In fact, in some way, he was always here - he never left the darkness. 

"Has anyone ever told you you're very existential?" 

"Is that a compliment?" 

"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. You going to bed?" 

He scowled at her, even though she probably couldn't see it. "What's it to you?" 

"I just thought you might be interested," she replied casually, untying the sash of her robe and letting it fall to the floor. He caught a flash of her naked back as she walked away, leaving it behind like an old skin. 

He levered himself out of the chair, leaving his cigar butt smoldering in the ashtray, and walked slowly across the room to the doorway, carefully stepping over the puddle of red silk she had left on the floor. She was stretched out naked on her bed, her skin still rosy from the warm bath water, and she was in a sort of calculated pose, one arm behind her head, the other arm stretched out beside her, her hair now loose and spilling over her pillow like a fan of red velvet. She had longer legs than he ever realized, and while her breasts were small, they were firm and nearly the same milky pale color as her eyes. He saw the red, green, and black mark on her left hip, which was canted up slightly to show her legs to better effect. "I didn't know you had a tattoo," he remarked. Wow, what a stupid thing to say. But he was pretty sure he had little blood getting to his brain at the moment. 

"Oh yeah. I went back to Dublin during my senior year in college, and got completely wasted. I guess I decided I needed a tattoo to show my Irish solidarity - or whatever the fuck, I don't know, I just know I can't drink three stouts in the space of an hour - and I decided on this, for some reason. I bet I just thought the snake looked cool." 

"Is an ouroboros Irish?" 

She shrugged casually, as if they weren't having this conversation while she was laid out naked on her bed, waiting for him. "I got no fucking clue. I'm just glad I didn't get the clover - how tacky is that?" 

He shrugged. He had always thought she had an occasional upward lilt to her vowels, like she'd done a lot of time in Ireland, but he had no idea she was from there, as she had lost all but the dregs of her accent. There was a lot he didn't know about her, and a lot he didn't know about himself. Maybe that made it even. 

He peeled off his shirt as he crossed the room towards her. He always knew she was good looking, but he had never realized she was beautiful. "Why me?" He asked, and he didn't know why. What did he mean by that? Was he even asking her and not just thinking aloud? Frankly, he was surprised he was still capable of speech. 

She smiled seductively at him, and said, "I like you." 

It could have been a joke - it was pretty obvious she liked him - but he knew it wasn't; she was serious. He tossed the shirt on the floor - like he cared where it landed - and kicked off the dead man's boots, which had been an imperfect fit anyways. She deserved better than him - a mindless assassin, an idiot who was never quite sure what was going on around him; an animal who was only good for killing. 

But if she didn't know that, he wasn't about to tell her now. 

** 

    This time, he dreamed of needles. 

Not plain old, wimpy hypodermics, but injectors with silver needles at least five inches long, and cylinders as thick as soup cans and only slightly longer. The people wielding them were faceless behind sterile suits and full face hoods with protective plastic inserts that weren't quite see through. He knew those he could see were men only because of the width of their shoulders and chests, and the size of their hands inside their protective gloves. 

( "The visors are in case blood splatters," some part of him - some cold, unforgivably insane part of him - noted. "They don't want to get it in their eyes. Your filthy mutant blood ... ") 

He watched one of those needles - elongating as if this was a nightmare; a needle turning into a slender spear - descend towards his face with a slowness that was maddening. It gave him enough time to wonder why he couldn't move, why the glass coffin he was in seemed to be filling with a water he could see but not precisely feel, even as his back burned like someone had kindled a fire in the middle of his spine. There was another, slightly less fiery sensation at the base of his throat. 

That cold voice again, that insane part of him that had just let go of the outside world and now only observed things as a passive, uninvolved observer, spoke up again. ("They severed your spinal column, so you'd be paralyzed and unable to move. You can breath, but they cut your vocal chords so you can't scream. Drugs are wasted on you; they never last long enough. And you always come back, no matter what they do to you, or how often.") 

The burning was the healing process; yes, he could feel the splashes of the tepid water as it started to fill in the spaces around him. His nerves were well on the way to recovery, but the damage to the vertebrae itself would take longer. Long enough to keep him from feeling all of this? 

He was finding it hard to breathe as he felt the needle penetrate the skin beneath and just to the right of his eye; he felt a similar needle jab through his skin in the matching spot on the other side of his face. He felt the metal scrape the bone of his cheek, and then the needles began too pump something underneath his skin. It felt like molten lava, like live wasps stinging the inside of his flesh in a desperate bid to escape, and suddenly he could smell burning flesh; his flesh. He was being burned alive from the inside out, his skin being parboiled as a prelude to being flayed off his bones. 

The fire was spreading; it was spreading from his face to his scalp, and down into his throat, and he couldn't breath. He couldn't breathe, and the water was now in his eyes, and the burn in his back and his throat had given way to this true fire; this liquid fire he could feel moving beneath his skin like snakes, insects ... 

Wolverine woke up with a noise that was somewhere between a swallowed scream and desperate gasp, sitting up, hands reaching out blindly to grab the penetrating needles and stab them in the eyes of the men trying to burn him alive. 

But the men weren't there - he was not in a place that smelled of death and metal, but a dark, cool room that smelled of sex and sweat. It still took him a moment to remember where he was. 

He felt a cool hand on his bicep. "Hey," a sleepy but startled female voice asked. "What - " 

It was instinct to yank his arm away violently; he didn't want to be touched. It didn't matter if it was a caress or a punch - in the end, they were all the same. "Don't touch me," he snapped, sounding angry, but really it was a helpful warning. He just couldn't deal with it right now, and he couldn't be held responsible for what he did if she kept it up. Especially instinct kept screaming at him to kill them all before they could hurt him again. 

He continued to suck in air desperately, like a swimmer who had finally punched a hole through the ice forming over his head at the last possible second, and that quiet, distant voice in the back of his own mind told him he'd hyperventilate if he didn't stop. He was almost curious to see if he could hyperventilate. 

"Fine, be that way," Static said, her voice limned with frost, as she turned over and laid down, her back to him. Her hip made a smooth curve in the sheets, and he knew, if he could bear it, he would touch it, run his hand down to her lean, muscular thigh. But right now, the idea was hideous. 

He rested his face on his upraised knees, and covered his head like he was tensed for a blow. He tried to control his own breathing even as the nightmare ( memory ) fled, leaving nothing behind but a feeling of violation and dread. In two minutes, he couldn't even remember what had bothered him so much to wake him up, but the metallic taste of fear lingered in the back of his throat. 

He laid down, turning his back to her, staring at the hotel room door in the darkness, wondering what he had ever done to end up like this. She shifted, and then he felt her hand on his back, in between his shoulder blades, but although he jolted slightly, he did not shrug her off. "I'm sorry," she said softly. 

He never wanted to know why she said that. 


	7. Part 7

12 

    He knew if Logan ever discovered he did this, he'd probably find it hard to forgive. 

But Jean was worried about him, and Xavier was worried about her taking it into her own hands ( well, mind ) to find him. She was more powerful than before, there was no denying that, but it bothered him because he knew all telepaths had to grapple with their powers when they went beyond a certain point. The fact that she was a telekinetic on top of this - and much more powerful there than with telepathy ( so far ) - made it that much more difficult. 

He knew what it was like to get intoxicated on your own sense of power. It happened to the best of them; once, it had even happened to him. But stumbling was as much a part of the learning process as anything else, and there was little substitute for experience. Jean had already had a negative experience with her telekinesis: she let her emotions get out of control, and her powers lashed out of their own accord, and people were hurt. It was what brought her here, as she never wanted that to happen again. 

But there was a slow but inexorable change occurring with her. Maybe it was exposure to Logan's lack of emotional restraint, or Bob's power, or Camaxtli's power, but she was growing restless with her own well crafted emotional  armor. Feeling that poor woman die while she was in her mind probably made her retreat back to it, but it was only a matter of time before she ventured out again. And when she did ... what would she do? He would have to help her through it, prepare for it, because he didn't like to think of Jean getting out of control. He didn't think it was likely, but Erik had taught him to prepare for the worst. 

Cerebro was as cool and empty as always, and as he maneuvered his wheelchair up to the console, he touched the cold metal headpiece of the device, and wondered if he had any right to intrude. 

Logan did ask them to check up on him after a certain number of hours had passed, but that allotted time had not completely elapsed. Still, if he was in danger, what was a little fudging? And, if not, perhaps he could get by undetected. 

He slipped on the main control of Cerebro, and focused on finding Logan as the world fell away. 

*** 

    Wolverine came back to himself with the taste of blood in his mouth ... blood that wasn't his own. 

And as horrifying as that thought was, it wasn't as bad as the feeling of almost post - coital bliss he could feel warming his muscles and soothing his nerves. He didn't want to know the connection between those two things. 

But he had to open his eyes. 

He did, and was not surprised to see the blood whose scent clogged his nostrils and filled his mouth. It was all over the walls and floor, along with bodies it had come from. 

He got to his feet, careful not to slip on the gore, trying to remember what the hell had happened. The bodies around him were torn up badly; some had been completely ripped in half. They all had worn black suits, all ten of them, but now they were just smears and body parts, piles of entrails scattered across the white tiled floor. 

There wasn't only Human refuse; lab tables had been shattered, and glass fragments glittered among the blood slick like crushed diamonds. He didn't remember what had happened, and his head hurt, pounding like a second heart. Did they hit him with something? Give him a powerful drug? What? 

He ran his hands through his hair, and realized belatedly he shouldn't have, as they were sticky with blood. He was covered in it; he couldn't even tell if he was wearing clothes or simply other people's blood. 

There was the hiss of a door opening on the far side of the room, and he instantly tensed as he saw a man in tan uniform enter, and look around in abject horror. "Wolverine, what have you done?" The man exclaimed, his round, pale face crumpling in pain. "They were trying to help you." 

There were so many interpretations of "help" it didn't bother him - some people's idea of help involved hurting others as much as possible. But he was starting to remember now ... little fragments ... his claws slicing through a man as easily as warm butter; blood splattering his face like a hot spray of saltwater; the crunch of bones beneath his fists and his feet ... and worst of all, the raw satisfaction it brought him. It was almost as good as sex; it felt liberating and intoxicating. He had been drunk on power and blood. What for? Why? Why had he done it? He still couldn't remember that. 

He was ready for the man to attack him - he was almost looking forward to it - but he just fell to his knees beside the top half  of a body, looking miserable. "Why did you do this?" He asked again. 

He didn't know what to say. He had no answer, and the man's raw grief was not something he was prepared for; he was being slowly overtaken by the surety that he was an animal, or perhaps even worse. 

"What do you think you are doing?" A man's voice said. It was familiar, but so out of place it took him a moment to recall who it belonged to. The guard or corporal or whatever the fuck he was looked up in shock, all traces of grief gone, and he followed his gaze to the far corner. 

Xavier was standing there, in his dark grey pinstriped suit, glaring at the guard like he was responsible for the carnage. Logan's head reeled - his name was Logan, right? - and suddenly he had absolutely no clue what the fuck was going on. And he thought his head had hurt before. 

The bodies disappeared as Xavier crossed the room towards the guard, who stood up and faced him with sheer contempt. "And who the fuck are you?" The guard demanded. At the end, the voice had gone from male to female. 

"Get out of his mind." Xavier ordered, and Logan finally figured it out. This wasn't real at all - this was the doing of a telepath. But why? And what the hell was Xavier doing here - was it another trick? 

The guard suddenly became the young girl with the two toned silver and violet hair, and now that he had a good look at her, he saw her eyes were two toned as well: the right one was black, and the left one was blue. "You first," she snapped, and Xavier disappeared. She then turned to him with a triumphant look on her face, and said, "Haven't you ever told your friends it's rude to barge in like that?" 

He wanted to tell her to fuck off, or better yet attack her, but he couldn't do anything. He was at her mercy here, whether it was his mind or not. 

But then Xavier appeared right behind her, arms folded across his chest, a very stern look on his face. "Who do you think you're dealing with, child?" He asked, making her jump. 

She spun around, obviously shocked by his reappearance, but he simply told her, in his best stentorian tones: "Get out, and stay out." 

And Logan woke up. 

13 

    The first thing he heard - above the rumbling of the truck engine - was the keening wail of a girl in panic or pain; it was hard to say which. 

"Delirium," a man said, alarmed. "What's happened? What's wrong?" 

He was careful not to move and alert those with him he was conscious. He assumed Delirium was the telepath, and that Xavier had put her out of play; by scent he judged he was surrounded by seven men, three on each side and one at his feet, where Delirium was carrying on. They were armed, but that didn't bother him - what did bother him were the shackles. He could feel them, so tight they were biting into the flesh of his wrists ( and he was trying to heal around them anyways ), and they were behind his back, while he was face down on the floor of the dirty truck ( probably a small troop transport, judging by the smell ). The truck shuddered as it traveled down a rough road, and he wondered where they were taking him. 

Well, where they thought they were taking him - they'd never get that far. 

Logan exploded into action, hoping that surprise would aid him as much as anything else. Using sound alone as his only guide, he lashed out with both his feet and nailed the asshole attempting to coax coherence out of Delirium ( that sounded like an oxymoron ), and the one of the troops made a startled noise as others pulled their weapons, but Logan was already up on his knees. Delirium was still wailing, arms around her head, and seemed to be completely unaware of what was going on around her ( what had Xavier done to her? ). The closest soldier to him tried stupidly to put him in a throat lock, so Logan simply smashed his head back into his and sent him crumpling to his bench. 

He'd barely gotten to his feet when the invisible "dog pile on Wolverine" signal went out, but he didn't care - he was so fucking ticked off they were going to have to do better than cattle prods and bludgeoning to bring him down. 

They hadn't realized they were doing him a favor by all attempting to subdue him at once. There was no room to maneuver in this confined space, but he also couldn't use his arms for the moment, so it helped to have them all around him and ready to get flattened. Well placed kicks broke legs and cracked sternums; one grabbed him from behind and tried to jam a paralyzer in his ear, but a hard pivot sent the asshole flying, and he hit the tailgate door and went flying out with a startled yelp. He hit the road hard, and Logan judged this thing was flying along at maybe sixty miles an hour. ( Well, that was flying for a troop transport. ) 

This was his opportunity, and he took it. As soon as he had a clear shot, he dove head first out of the tailgate door. 

Unlike the soldier,he was ready for it ( even if having his arms cuffed behind his back put him in an awkward position ), and was able to hit the road in a ball, shoulders first, rolling with the tremendous, skin shredding impact ( it would have killed him or at least mortally injured him if he were a normal human - that soldier was surely road pizza ), even as muscles tore, skin disappeared with the friction of speed and impact, and his consciousness reeled from hitting the ground so hard, and so goddamn fast. But it was nothing he couldn't deal with, and by the time he finally came to a stop, half his muscles were healed, he could feel his skin growing back, and his consciousness seemed to be firmly back in place. Enough for him to realize the truck had stopped, as had the second troop transport in front of it. 

Oh shit. 

Troops began pouring out of the back like cockroaches swarming from beneath a fridge, and he heard some random conversations among the group. 

" - happened to Delirium?" 

" - behind his back, right? How hard can he be to subdue - " 

" - fuckin' mutie was nuts anyways!" 

" - after you." 

Finally some authority figure got his fat ass out of the truck, and shouted, "Don't make us hurt you, Wolverine. Stand down." Lights from the top of sniper rifles fixed on him, blinded him, and he snorted derisively as the men approached en masse, in that cautious, spread out scramble that soldiers used when approaching a target that isn't secure. 

It was dark, or nearly so. The sky was clear, and a hazy bruise colored purple that only occurred at dawn and dusk. If it was simply dusk, then he hadn't been out for long, and he knew he was still in Montana simply from the flat openness of the landscape and the sky. 

"Bullets? Wanna annoy me, fuckwits?" He growled, squinting against the light. He knew they were assuming a standard girding pattern around him, which would leave him the center of their circle. Stupid, considering they were all aiming firearms. If he could coax them into firing, they'd all kill each other. 

"Adamantium," the leader said, hanging back, proving he was brass. "I bet they'll sting." 

"Stinging ain't gonna cut it. " 

The silhouette of the man nodded. "You've had worse. I guess we saw to that, didn't we?" 

That made acid churn in his stomach ( what if Delirium wasn't just playing with his mind? What if they were actually memories she was distorting ... ), and it was just the type of distraction that the guy wanted. The troops closed in, and pulled a bait and switch - instead of using their guns, they flipped them over to their adamantium coated stocks, while others swung them under their arms and pulled out paralyzers. He didn't wait for them to close in further: the nearest one coming at him with a paralyzer got a kick in the face that launched him straight into the next guy, and even as  the first adamantium plated gun butt slammed into his skull, he spun around into a high kick that nailed two guys in the face and one in the arm, sending his rifle right into the face of a neighboring soldier. They were so close together in their scrum there was a domino effect, and the falling knocked others over. Idiots. 

The smarter ones were waiting on the outer perimeter, and remained spread out, attacking in tandem: one in the front, one from behind. It was a good strategy, and it allowed them to hit home with a few blows and a paralyzer hit that almost took him down, but he lucked out in that it was glancing. He just started picking them off, working with the ones in front first. Those who got too close got a head butt that broke their noses and possibly their foreheads, and the ones that hung back got a kick to the face, sternum, or gut that sent them flying back, at least giving him a bit more room to work. The remaining ones spread out even more, making it a harder fight. If only he could get these stupid fucking cuffs off - they were throwing off his balance. 

The paralyzer hit made him slow, and one of the soldiers caught his foot when he tried to get him in the face, but he did what 'Clops should have done when he did the same thing to him in the gym. Deciding the guy's grip was firm enough, he launched into a kick with his free leg, aware he could completely pop the other leg out of its hip socket if the guy held on to his other foot long enough. 

The guy didn't. He figured out at the last second what he might do and let go, but not in time. Logan just spun in mid air and nailed him with a boot right to the side of the head. There was a crack and the guy collapsed like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, and Logan hit the ground hard. He felt his shoulder - already under strain from the tight cuffs - tear, but he rolled and hit another soldier in the legs, sending him falling on his ass. The pain in his left shoulder was excruciating, even beyond the burning pain of healing, but he still used both his shoulders to arch his back and give him enough leverage to flip back up to his feet ( if he stayed down too long, they would have him for sure ). 

A soldier rushed in, but he met his charge with a kick that was supposed to nail him in the stomach, but since his aim was a bit off, it ended up catching him right in the balls. The guy dropped like a stone, grabbing his crotch and making retching noises. That had to hurt. He almost felt bad for him; he hadn't meant to get him there. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blur, and instantly moved, which was a good thing, as the macadam where he had been standing just a second before exploded into tiny bits. 

Looking towards the fat ass - the direction from which the blast emanated - he saw that thick necked guy standing next to him. The one who shot concussive blasts from his hands - shit! He'd forgotten about him. "You are mesmerizing to watch fight," the brass said. "Even with your hands tied behind your back. You just have no sense of self preservation, do you? I always wondered why the higher ups liked you so much when you didn't seem to have a power worth a damn, but I think I get it now." 

"Goody for you," he snapped, glaring at the shadow of the blaster guy standing beside him. "How can you work with this fuck?" 

"Shut the fuck up, mongrel," the guy replied - Logan could hear the sneer in his voice. Obviously he hadn't heard of the mutant brotherhood thing either. 

"What did you do to Delirium?" Fat ass wondered, sounding more curious than concerned. 

"My mind's not a very friendly place, is it?" He wasn't going to tip them off that Xavier must have had some idea what was happening. It was doubtful they could get ready for him, but he wanted him to have the element of surprise if nothing else. 

"Nothing about you is friendly." It sounded like he was smiling as he said that. "Now get in the truck, or get blasted back to the fucking stone age." 

His response - a heartfelt "Blow me" ( self preservation was for suckers ) - died in his throat as he heard footsteps and smelled someone familiar. Very familiar. 

"Well, that's not gonna happen," Bob said cheerfully, coming up the road behind Logan. 

Blaster guy aimed his hands in Bob's direction, and he could see white light accumulating in his palms. But then Bob said, "Oh please," and the lights died out immediately. Blaster looked at his traitorous hands, startled, clearly not understanding what was going on. 

Bob then said, "Half power," and Blaster accidentally got a face full of one of his own concussive blasts. His head snapped back so violently Logan was amazed it didn't sail clean off, and Blaster ended up throwing himself backwards about fifteen feet. 

"Shouldn't look into a loaded firearm," Bob said, making perhaps the worst joke in history. In spite of that, Logan couldn't help but laugh. It was too funny watching him send himself flying. 

Fat ass was starting to stink of fear, he was so baffled by what was going on he couldn't even begin to cope. He may have tried to grab a sidearm of his own, but he wasn't terribly successful. Bob patted him on the arm as he walked past, and said, "I still got the timing, don't I?" 

"You're good," Logan admitted. "But I coulda used ya an hour ago." 

Bob shrugged, never looking back, as he heard Helga come up behind him. "You're not very grateful when you're grumpy, are you?" She said, and he felt her grab the cuffs around his wrists. His left shoulder still ached, but mainly from the continued healing process. "Don't move, tiger - I don't wanna cut you." 

"It doesn't matter." 

"It does to me. I need the practice picking the locks of adamantium cuffs. Now hold still." 

Bob had gone up to the brass, who was frozen in place, gaping like a fish out of water. "Now tell me, where were you taking Logan." Not a question, but an incredible simulation. 

"Base Cypher, over the border." 

"More specific." 

"Lantern Flats, Saskatchewan, Canada." 

Bob glanced back at him, but all Logan could do was shake his head. He'd never heard of a town called Lantern Flats, nonetheless a base called Cypher. Bob turned back to the brass, and said, "Why?" 

"Reaper wants him." 

"Reaper?" Bob repeated. 

That name was familiar in more ways than one. Not only was it in the memories Delirium was toying with, but he would swear it was one of the words that popped up in the gibberish of the files Static had brought him. "Who the fuck is he and what does he want with me?" Logan asked. 

"You heard him," Bob said, just to make sure fat ass would answer the questions. 

"Reaper is the senior most mutant in charge of other mutants," Brass replied flatly. " I don't know what he wants with Wolverine." 

"Is he at Cypher?" Bob asked. 

"No. He wanted Wolverine brought there for containment." 

Containment - another wonderful word he heard a lot. What was with people always trying to "contain" him, like he was a toxic waste leak? 

He felt the cuffs loosen around his wrists and he pulled them apart as Helga stepped back, and they clattered to the street. She said proudly, "I've still got it" 

"You pick a lot of locks?" He wondered, rubbing his wrists. The pain was mostly in his head. 

"Only if I can't kick down the door." 

He assumed that meant "not very often". 

"Do you know anything about Wolverine?" Bob asked the brass, clearly frustrated by his obvious boneheaded ignorance. 

"He's a level twelve." 

Bob, Logan, and Helga all exchanged puzzled glances before Bob asked, "A level twelve? What does that mean?" 

A voice out of the dark said, "Grave threat - the highest isolation protocols are needed to contain or liquidate a level twelve." Logan turned so fast he almost threw himself off balance, and he still couldn't believe what he was seeing - Marcus coming up the road, grabbing his chest like it hurt, but otherwise okay, just slightly pained. "You could have waited for me, ya know," he said peevishly. 

"You needed a breather," Bob argued. "And Logan didn't." 

Marcus didn't look happy about that, but what could he do? It was dark enough that he had his goggles pushed up on his head, and his eyes looked like all pupils, with just a thin rim of white around the edge. He had a huge hole blasted in his flak jacket where Logan his chest explode outward, so that hadn't been a Delirium mind trick - he had actually been shot. He had been shot and was dying when he last saw him, so ... Logan shifted his gaze back to Bob, who looked as guileless as always. Seeing the question in his eyes - or his mind - he simply shrugged. "We stopped by the battlefield before we caught up with you. I'm still gettin' the teleporting targeting down. It's hard enough to stick dimensions without bein' exact to feet." 

So Bob had saved him. The relief he felt was o overwhelming he had too close his eyes for a moment. He hadn't gotten Marcus killed. He owed Bob for that. 

"Who the hell wounded the water buffalo?" Marcus asked, as Delirium continued her pointless wailing from the back of the truck. 

"It's a telepath, the weird haired girl," Logan explained. "Xavier took her out." 

"Xavier?" He replied, surprised. He even glanced around, as if he might have had his wheelchair parked in a nearby field. 

"Chuck didn't hurt her," Bob said to both of them. "You know he's not the type. He just scared her. She's not taking it well, but I don't think the poor dear has a full kebab, if you know what I'm sayin'." 

"I have no fucking idea what you're saying," Marcus replied. 

"A taco short of a combination platter," Helga offered helpfully. 

"Oh, okay." 

Bob glanced back at the truck, and said, "Nighty nighty, darlin'." She fell instantly quietly, and they were all grateful for that. 

Logan rolled his left shoulder, as it was a little stiff, but the sensation of healing had almost completely died down now. "Okay, something really fucked up is goin' on here." 

"More than usual?" Bob replied. 

That made him hesitate. "Yeah, I think so." 

"What's the deal?" Marcus asked. 

Logan tried to get it straight in his own mind before airing his theory, but to be honest he was having a hard time getting it straight in his own head. Maybe saying it aloud would help him piece it together. "I don't think any of this is about me. I think this is all about Reaper." 

"How so?" Bob asked first. 

He told them about the memory - if that's what it was; if it could be trusted - of Reaper having a different scent and changing, shortly after his supposed mission to Siberia ( there was the tie there ). And now Reaper was the one who wanted him contained, even though the human here didn't know why. "I think those disks Static brought me weren't really about me - I think they were really about Reaper," he concluded, not sure it made sense, but it felt right. 

"Hold  up," Marcus said, leaning on the butt of a large assault rifle like it was a cane. It figured he'd pick one of those up. "Yeah, I remember his name bein' on the files, but why would this Delirium chick help you in any way? This has got to be a set up." 

Bob made a noise of disbelief and shook his head. "Ah god, I love Byzantine plots." 

Logan wasn't sure he understood that, but he got the gist of his meaning. "You think I'm right." 

"I think it's a mutant problem, and I think they think you can solve it, yeah." 

"Wait - they work for the Org, so why - oh, wait a sec," Marcus said, absentmindedly rubbing his chest. He bet the place where the chest wall had been formerly blown to pieces was gonna hurt for a while now, no matter that Bob put it all back together. "The double cross, right?" 

Bob shook his head. "The Humans think they've suckered the mutants in the Ogre for  working for them, but the mutants have another secret agenda. They're both working for the same place, but with different goals." 

"So why wasn't blast face down the street there helping me out?" Logan wondered, punching a hole in the theory. 

"They might not all be in on it, or playing for the same end," Bob suggested. Bob made everything seem reasonable, but he still had a point. 

"So Reaper might have his own team?" Marcus nodded in agreement. "Okay, makes sense. But why Logan? Wouldn't they have someone on the inside to take care of this?" 

"There'd probably be repercussions in fucking with the boss," Helga pointed out. "I bet there was a lack of volunteers." 

"And maybe there's no one on the inside who could take care of it," Logan said, wondering if he was being egotistical. "Maybe I'm it." He thought about Static's last words. 'Tell Logan he has to -' ... kill was the word, wasn't it? Tell Logan he has to kill Reaper. But why? And why now? 

"What's his power?" Bob asked. "Do you know?" 

"He vaporizes things." 

"Holy fuck," Marcus exclaimed. "No wondered they wanted to farm this out. How the fuck do we take on a guy who could vaporize us where we stand?" 

"You don't," Bob said casually, as if it was no big deal at all. "I do." 

Logan wondered if Static knew about Bob before she decided to bring him the disks. Maybe, ultimately, this task wasn't really meant for him. 

14 

    He didn't know what he was expecting, but this wasn't it. 

The man who got out of his oversized Road Ranger in the sparkling clean driveway of the strangely prim split level suburban house was just an ordinary looking man - neither handsome nor plain, average height and weight, maybe in his early forties and just starting to lose his brittle dun colored hair near the temples. He wore a well tailored grey suit with matching tie that wouldn't have looked out of place in Xavier's wardrobe. There was nothing about him that screamed "mutant" - there was nothing about him that screamed "traitor", "torturer", or "murderer" either, but Logan knew he was all those things, and possibly more. 

He locked his truck with his electronic remote, and the bleeps seemed to echo in the eerie stillness that had settled over this sleepy bedroom community in the shadow of Washington D.C. - it was nothing like real urban Washington D.C., where Reaper would not only stand out for being a wealthy white guy, but would just be begging to get shot for his obviously arrogant attitude. 

"Are you just going to watch me, or are you going to show yourself?" Reaper asked, his voice dripping with smug confidence. 

While Reaper had sussed his surveillance, he remained perfectly oblivious of Bob, who was sitting on his front porch, singing quietly and juggling pine cones from the Douglas fir in his front yard. Bob had been there the entire time he was parking - his headlights had even shined on him - but he hadn't noticed because Bob hadn't wished him to notice him at all. That was all it took to make Bob invisible, apparently, and that was a frightening thought. 

"Tease this amputation, splintered larynx it has access now," Bob sang, bouncing a pine cone off his forehead, only to kick it back into the juggling stream with the toe of his boot. He was a remarkably talented juggler, but why was Logan surprised? he was good at everything. Well, except parking - he still didn't have the hang of that. 

Logan wanted to play it this way. He wanted to see the man, wanted to see his reaction when confronted with him. There was no danger in this for him at all - if the thought to vaporize him crossed his mind, it would be the last free thought he would have. 

Logan emerged from the shadows beside his garage casually, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall as if this was a friendly social call; like he didn't want to instinctively rip his smug face off, or crush his sternum with a well placed boot to the chest. He could do either without a problem, and he hoped to soon. "For a guy named Reaper, you don't look all that scary." 

He spun so fast to face him that Logan knew he had surprised him even before the smell of fear registered. But he played it cool, or at least tried, attempting to hide it as best he could behind a neutral expression. "Wolverine. So you slipped the noose? I'm impressed." 

He liked his use of the word "noose". "Banked on memory, mummified circuitry," Bob continued to sing. He was now juggling three pine cones with his left hand only. Perhaps he was bored. "Skin graft machinery - " Logan was starting to wonder if the song he had chosen to sing was somehow a comment on him. 

"How did you get past Delirium?" Reaper asked curiously, trying to play it casual. But he made no move backwards or forwards, and his posture was still far too rigid for the impression he was trying to get across. He was trying to surreptitiously check out his surroundings, probably for others. Maybe he thought the "X Men" had sprung him. 

" - species growing, bubbles in an IV loitering - " Bob sang, and then whipped a pine cone straight over Reaper's head. He must have felt the breeze because he looked up, but he didn't see what had just narrowly missed his skull. When Bob wanted to fuck with your head, he could do it up big time. 

"Since when can a telepath hold me?" Logan replied blandly. God, he wanted to kill him. 

Reaper nodded slightly, but seemed more relaxed than before. And in the dimness of early night, Logan could see the slightest silver light in his otherwise unremarkable blue eyes. The light was starting to glow, slowly but surely, tiny pinpricks clustering around the irises like miniature fireflies.What the hell was going on with his eyes? "Good point. But hope springs eternal." 

"Unknown origin. Is this the comfort of being afraid," Bob sang, tossing the rest of the pine cones back into the yard. He was done wasting time. 

"I know Static wanted me to stop you," he said, laying it all out now. "But what I haven't completely figured out is why." 

"I see. And this is the part where I spill the beans, giving you the opportunity to save the day, is it?" 

Logan shrugged. "I don't wanna save the day. I just wanna kill you." 

Reaper laughed, as if that was genuinely funny. "That's the one thing I liked about you, Wolverine - you were very uncomplicated." 

That was a good example of a backhanded compliment, but he wasn't about to take the bait. After all, Reaper was just one person - he didn't have a god on his side. Still, he went along with the plan: he dropped  his hands and sprung his claws. "Fine - I'll just gut ya in Static's name, then." 

"Oh, you stupid animal - you can't kill me." 

"Wanna bet?" He took a threatening step forward, but Reaper just smirked, the glow in his eyes almost too bright to look upon now. Logan dutifully stopped, as if confused, but he honestly was; it was hardly acting. "Why ain't you bothered?" 

"You can't kill what has no form. I'm no frail, Wolverine. I'm your better." 

"He is not a demon," Bob said, approaching the driveway. He wiped the pine pitch off his hands on the back of his pants, although since they were leather Logan had no idea how he did it, or why. "He's a mutant, big time. Unusual psychic signature." 

"How so?" He was asking Bob, but Reaper took it as a question for him. 

"Like I'm really going to tell you, savior," Reaper snapped - in perfect Russian -  as the glow from his eyes flared, like a burst from Cyclops's eyes. 


	8. Part 8

Bob suddenly inserted himself between him and Reaper. "Nope - find another way," he said, and the light instantly died away. 

Reaper looked startled, but in a pissed off "how dare you" sort of way. "Who the fuck - " 

"I know, I know," Bob agreed. "It's very rude to interrupt a murder, but sometimes there's just no other way." 

Reaper just gaped at him like he was a madman - which was a fair assessment - but before he could do much else his face went slack, and Bob was clearly done fucking around. "Now, what are you exactly?" Bob asked, backing up until he was standing beside Logan. Logan retracted his claws, because he doubted he'd be gutting the bastard now. 

"I am many," Reaper said, making no sense at all. "I am the next stage of mutation." 

"How so?" Bob asked. If he was confused, it didn't show. 

"I was once a body, but I found out I didn't need one. I am my mutation; I am my blood." 

"This guy is makin' no fucking sense," Logan pointed out impatiently. 

His brow furrowed in concentration, but he never looked away from Reaper. "No, I think he is. This body isn't yours, is it?" 

"No." 

"What happened to the real Adam Kreeger?" Bob added as an aside, only for him: "Reaper's real name." 

"I took him over; he is no longer. My consciousness swamps all." 

"Who are you?" 

"Vasely Petrovich." 

"I freed you in Siberia?" Logan asked, still not quite getting this. He hated feeling like he was always a page behind and a day too late. 

Bob let him hear him, because he said, "You did, Wolverine, and for that I am grateful. Those bastards imprisoned me, they experimented on me, but through them I discovered my true mutation; my true form." 

"Which is?" Bob prompted. 

"Neural  cells." 

"Huh?" Logan asked. 

Even Bob scratched his head. "Neurons. Are you saying you can exist as independent cells?" 

"An intelligent, self replicating cluster; I can take root in any host, and make it my own." 

"Whoa," Bob said, running a hand through his hair. 

"Wait a fucking second," Logan exclaimed. "Is he saying he's an intelligent virus?" 

"I am not a virus," Vasely insisted. Bob hadn't cut him off from hearing him. 

"Not exactly, mate. I believe he's saying that, somehow, he retains enough of his psychic consciousness even in a few highly specialized cells. But when introduced into other people  - even mutants - the cells reproduce like a virus, and ... what? Do your cells imprint their pattern on the host's neurons?" 

"Yes." 

"So, wait - I thought I killed everyone in Siberia. Where the hell were you?" 

"I was confined without form." 

"My guess is a petri dish in a lab," Bob opined. 

"Holy shit." He couldn't quite believe it, even though he knew he had to be telling the truth with Bob around. How could anyone's mind exist as a sample in a jar? "Why were they experimenting on you?" 

"They thought, if they could manipulate me, I would be the most perfect form of mind control." 

"But how the hell could they manipulate you?" Logan wondered. 

"That was their problem," Vasely conceded. 

"Was that what bothered Static and the others? Have you gone around infecting people?" 

Even as mindfucked as he was, Vasely gave him an evil glare for that. "I do not infect - I overcome." 

Somehow Logan didn't think anyone would be singing civil rights songs on his behalf. 

"You said you were many," Bob interjected. "So you have "overcome" many people." 

"Thousands." 

"No fucking way." Logan replied. It was a knee jerk response - how could you believe a number like that? 

But Bob believed him, because Bob knew he was not lying. "In the Organization?" 

"Mostly." 

"Mutants?" 

"Mostly." 

"That explains it," Bob said, turning to face him and ignoring Vasely for the moment. "He's "overcome" nearly everyone who works with or for him, but they weren't supposed to know that - sleepers." He glanced back at the weird ass combination of two mutants in one. "You're poised to take over, but you're dormant, is that it?" 

"Yes." 

"And then you control everyone," Bob said to the former Reaper, although it was not a question that needed answering. 

"Yes." 

"Shit," Logan said, still trying to grasp the magnitude of this all. "And the human part of the Organization knows of this - they approved this didn't they? They cut some kinda deal with you." 

"One is easier to deal with than many." Vasily replied blandly. 

On the surface, this was unbelievably creepy - it wasn't just a psychic takeover of all these minds, it was a physical one; his self - replicating neurons would literally rewrite a person's mind into his image, if he was getting this correctly. So once he triggered them out of dormancy - once the sleepers woke up - they wouldn't be themselves anymore: they would be him. A single brain - one thousand bodies. Jesus fucking christ. A literal army of one. "Am I one of you?" he snapped, squelching the urge to throttle him ( it wouldn't do any good ). "Do you have your neurons in my head?" 

"Why would Static give this to you if she thought you were one of him?" Bob pointed out. 

"For some reason, they never took," Vasely replied. "No immune system should have been sophisticated enough to detect me." 

"But Logan's did." 

"Sadly." 

He couldn't help but let out a small sigh of relief. Finally, having a freaky immune system paid off in a truly tangible way. 

"But Static used some faulty logic," Bob went on, as if this had been an ongoing conversation. "She thought if the source of the "infection" was killed, all of the rest of it would die off. But that's not true, is it? It doesn't matter if one dies, as you're all connected yet separate." 

"Correct." 

"You're tellin' me I have to kill everyone you've infected?" Logan exclaimed in disbelief. A thousand people? He knew he'd done at least sixty in Japan, but Bob seemed content to let him plead temporary insanity on that one. It probably helped that he still didn't remember it. 

"You don't have to kill anyone," Bob told him. 

"It is too late, Wolverine," Vasely said, and if he could have gloated, he would have. "I have started activating my - " 

"No you haven't," Bob insisted. "There's nothing to activate." 

"Yes, there - " Vasely began, but then suddenly paused, confusion washing over his face. What, were the satellites not bouncing signals back to base? "What is - " 

"You have no powers," Bob told him matter of factly. "You don't exist as specialized cell clusters. You're just a plain old Human being." 

Vasely grabbed the side of his head, as if Bob was shouting into his ears, but it was something happening inside his mind and body, something no one could ever prepare you for - his very cell structure was altering to suit Bob's wishes. "No," he gasped, collapsing to his knees. "I am a mutant! I am not a frail!" 

"Yes you are - you're nothing but a frail," Bob said, an angry edge to his voice. "You will never be anything but a normal Human ever again. It's over, Vasely." 

"No!" He screamed, his anguished voice echoing down the block. But Logan knew his scent had already perceptively shifted - that odd smell ( viral mutant? ) was gone; he was just Human. An angry, scared Human who was on the verge of pissing his pants. 

Logan didn't even want to kill the bastard anymore. He looked so pathetic kneeling at the feet of Bob that killing him would be the equivalent of killing a puppy - both pointless and far too easy. 

Bob turned away, shaking his head in disgust. "Let's go, Logan. We can see how much damage Marc and Helga caused." 

While he and Bob decided to meet up with Reaper at his house ( lucky for them, fat ass knew Reaper's real name, which allowed Bob to find out where he lived ), Helga and Marcus decided to go break up Base Cypher. According to fat ass, it wasn't so much a base as an "emergency containment ( that word again ) facility, underground and not wildly staffed, except when they had a "package" ( mutant ) ready for confinement or transfer. Since "Wolverine" was the only package he had been informed of, he didn't think there were any other mutants currently there, but because he was a "level twelve", he figured there'd be no less than thirty guards on site. Any reservations Logan might have had about the two of them taking on guards prepared for mutants were quashed when Helga said, "This sounds like a job for a flamethrower." 

So she and Marcus decided on a rocket launcher, a flame thrower, and enough small arms and explosives to take over a small Latin American country; Bob made sure Marcus got a new flak jacket as well, but he told him as long as he stayed behind Helga and her flame thrower, nobody was going to be shooting correctly anyways. "Hard to shoot and run at the same time," Marcus agreed. Helga was going to call Bob and let him know "zap" them out of there, but since they hadn't called yet, it probably meant they weren't quite done toasting the place. They may have been ready for a mutant, but there was no way in hell they were ready for Helga. Who was? 

Logan glanced at Reaper - or whoever the fuck he had been - a kneeling, sobbing wreck in his own driveway, and asked Bob, "What do ya think's gonna become of him?" 

"I don't know, and I don't care. He saw himself as better than everyone, people as mere puppets for his own propagation. Now he's just a meat puppet himself - time to see how the other half lives." 

"You love irony, don't you?" 

Bob gave him a cheesy smile. "It has its moments." 

Logan realized killing Reaper would have been kinder - he couldn't think of a worse punishment than this. 

Good. 

15 

    They arrived at the tail end of things, although it gave them a nice glimpse of hell. 

Bob teleported them into a metal lined antechamber looking out onto a hallway where one of the connecting corridors was in flames, and there were a couple of guys - unconscious and dead - laying further down the hall. Shadows moved furtively along the walls and floors, fire making them seem like living things. Sounds of sporadic gunfire soon gave way to the crackling voices of flame, which was now the main source of light in the blacked out bunker, and the smoke was mainly being pulled through the air recirculators in here. It meant none of them were in danger of asphyxiation, but the fire continued to spread, as the sprinkler system had been damaged. 

Logan was ready for anyone, but since Bob was with him he never got the chance to fight. As soon as a group of black clad soldiers - obviously on a Helga and Marcus hunt - got a glimpse of them, Logan barely had time to pop his claws before Bob told them, quietly and simply: "Run." 

They turned en masse and fled like scared rabbits. "You take some of the fun out of this, ya know?" Logan pointed out crossly, although, in all honesty, the urge to fight had been ripped out of him. He was tired, he was depressed, he wanted a beer and a smoke ( well, not this kind of smoke ), and he was quite torn over whether he wanted answers or not. He knew now he would never like them. 

Bob just shrugged, not letting it kill his buzz. "Hel tells me that all the time." 

Just out of curiosity, he asked, "Could you make me normal too?" 

"Oh sure, but you'd last all of five minutes." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"You're too accustomed to taking your healing factor for granted. You'd walk straight into a bullet or a train or a bus, and only later - if there was a later - would it occur to you that you can't do that anymore." 

"I would not!" he insisted, then paused. ""Okay, maybe." 

"Maybe my ass," he replied, and gave him that cheesy grin. "I know you." 

He probably did - that was the scary thing. 

Marcus and Helga were not hard to find, even over the overwhelming smells of burning metal and rendering flesh - they were in what looked like the main computer core, which must have had its own separate power source since everything was still working in here. 

"Wow, you guys are done already?" Helga asked, pushing up the faceplate of a black helmet she must have stolen from one of the soldiers. It had a melted scar on the right side, possibly left by a stream of falling sparks. 

"Wasn't a lot to do," Bob lied, and filled them in on what happened with Reaper. Marcus was standing at one of the computer consoles, and had what looked like a portal zip drive plugged into an access port - he was attempting to copy their files. But from what looked like a reverse cascade of information flashing past on the screen, the info was disappearing even as he worked frantically to save it. His fingers darted over the keyboards so fast they were a blur, but from the extremely colorful twelve letter words he was muttering, Logan guessed he was losing the battle. 

"How could you wipe out of all of his satellites?" Helga asked, referring to Vasely's other selves. 

"Oh, no worries. The unusual psychic energy I was picking up was the link between him and his other clusters - you could say they used a special psychic frequency. I just rode the frequency and told them they didn't exist. Game over." 

"You're a scary dude, you know that?" Marcus said, before resuming his quiet cursing at the computer screen. Logan watched the information, trying to catch of it what he could before it disappeared forever. 

Bob just laughed. "You haven't seen my Gene Loves Jezebel impersonation yet." 

"Computer files self - destruct?" Logan asked Marcus, although it seemed like a silly question. 

"Yea. Motherfucking files have some kind of built - in destruction sequence. I'm trying to override, pause, something, but this cocksucking thing is bulletproof." He said, in a louder voice, "Hey Bob, can you work your mojo on computers?" 

"Not exactly, but I'm pretty good. What's the problem?" Before Marcus could answer, Bob came over and had a peek over his shoulder. "Shit, cascade failure. How long has this been goin' on?" 

"About five minutes." 

"Shit." Bob moved to a neighboring keyboard, but Logan had guessed from his grim expression that there was nothing much he could do. 

Logan could nothing but stand back and watch - he doubted he was very good with computers ( like he knew anything for sure )- and he heard the last few alarms going off inside the complex. Finally someone had set off the total evacuation signal, or maybe it was just the computer - either way, it was finally letting loose, and if he wasn't concentrating on trying to read everything flashing past on the screen in the blink of an eye, he would have laughed. Talk about a day late and a dollar short. 

Noticing his scrutiny in the reflection of the screen, Marcus said, "It's encrypted, so - " 

"No it's not, " Logan corrected him. "It's in Zulu." 

"Beg your pardon?" 

"Zulu - or a phonetic form of it." 

"Why the hell would it be in fuckin' Zulu man?" 

"Do you speak it?" 

Marcus dipped his head, as if that was fair enough. "But you can read it?" 

Well, that was obvious, wasn't it? Still, the belated idea that he was sent a chill through him. "It seems almost familiar somehow ..." 

And that was when he caught some familiar English words in mid erase, and he knew they were only in English because there was no Zulu approximations for them: Weapon x, and Wolverine. Right beside each other, as if referential ... as if they meant the same damn thing. The chill he felt a moment before seemed to fill him, travel all the way down to his toes. Information was flashing by on the screen, taking a straight shot into oblivion, but it became blurs of light with no meaning; words combined into strings of random letters, visual white noise. 

"If the world is falling down, then it may as well crash with me," Bob sang, as if commenting on the klaxons echoing throughout the steel halls. 

"You know, if you actually speak fucking Zulu, I'm quittin'," Marcus said, but his voice seemed distant. "I bet people from Zululand - or whatever the fuck it's called - don't even speak Zulu anymore. How the fuck would you know how to do that?! That ain't superhuman, that's super freaky." 

"And not in a Rick James way," Bob said, with unnatural cheeriness. 

"You really think you're funny, don't you Mad Max?" 

Bob laughed - that sounded distant too. "I'm a riot. But a failing riot; this viral self - destruct is a fucking nightmare. I can't save anything." 

Marcus grunted in agreement. "I don't think I got anything either. This fucking sucks." 

What had Marcus said back at his place in Baltimore? Weapon X was "some ultra hush hush super weapon project" that  "seemed to freak a lot of people out", and yet "ended in disaster". Maybe it did work for a while, and something went wrong - him. He went wrong. He was a weapon and he malfunctioned. 

No wonder Static brought the Reaper problem to him. He was made to cull the herd of the "rogue" mutants, right? He was immune to his neural "spores" or whatever the fuck they were, and it was his job to take out the mutants who were no longer of use to them. He was not nor had ever been a person - he was just a thing, a tool, an extremely literal loose cannon. He was their pet. 

He was their killer. And it was all he was ever good for. 

"Old man, you really oughta zap us out of here before the place comes down around our ears," Helga said, sounding as distant as everyone else. 

He watched Marcus pull the zip drive and put it in the pocket of his jacket. "Yeah, we should book while it's still an option." 

"Ready to go?" Bob chirped. He then added, more soberly, "Logan?" 

He touched him, and the millisecond his skin made contact with his shoulder he jerked away from him, not sure how he didn't pop his claws. he wanted to - he wanted everyone to be as far away from him as humanly possible. "Just get us the fuck out of here," he snapped, not daring to look anyone in the eye. 

He knew they all knew something was wrong, but only Bob was the danger here; Bob and his way of knowing everything everyone thought.*If you can hear me now, back the fuck off, and don't say a word,* he thought angrily. *I mean it* 

He didn't really know if Bob heard him or not, but he did say, "Everyone hold on to your garters," and then Cypher fell away around them. 

But Logan didn't check to see where they had materialized, nor did he care. No matter where they were, it changed nothing. 

He was a ticking time bomb, and he didn't know how he could trust himself around anyone ever again. 

16 

    When Reaper bothered to show up at his office, he was a panicky mess. He nearly plowed him over on the way to his desk, and seemed to be muttering to himself, although Spike couldn't say what. 

As he opened a desk drawer and started pulling papers out of it, dumping it all on the floor. "Is it true what they've said?" Spike asked, only for confirmation. It seemed too bizarre to be true. 

Reaper looked up, sweaty and pallid. "According to the lab, yes. But I don't believe it. That - that can't happen." 

The rain outside gave the light filtering in through the window a grey tinge, as if Reaper's disheveled state and mood had somehow bled into the outside world. 

"Wolverine escaped, found you, and now suddenly you're a frail?" That didn't make sense on so many levels it was hard to pick one. 

Reaper had moved on to the second drawer, and Spike wondered if he even knew what he was looking for. Probably not. "It can't be true, it can't be," he muttered, sending several computer disks crashing to the smoke blue carpet. 

"How did it happen? Wolverine couldn't have done this - no one I know could have done this! What happened?" When he showed no sign of acknowledging him, he said in his sternest tone of voice: "Adam, who did this?" 

"The pretty boy, the pretty boy!" He snapped, glaring at him. His brown hair was all mussed, standing up at all angles, like he'd just rolled out of bed, but Spike doubted he would ever sleep again. Someone had just made him the enemy. "He did this ... he told me I was, and he did this!" 

"Pretty boy?" It took him a moment to remember who that referred to. "Logan's associate? The one we can't trace?" 

"Do you know of another one?" He replied sourly, pulling the lower drawer as far out as the construction of the desk allowed. 

"You remember meeting him?" That was a bit of a first. "Is there anything you can recall about him? Anything that could help us find him?" Rain pelted against the window like hail, and he wasn't sure he heard him. "Adam?" 

"He has an Australian accent so thick you could stand a knife up in it," he said impatiently. "Is that what you wanted?" 

"Yes, that's a help." Australian, huh? And a reality warper - someone who could alter reality simply by wishing it so. He'd heard of mutants that powerful, but had never met one. And that was undoubtedly a good thing, considering what had just happened to Reaper. "What are you looking for?" 

"I thought I had a back up ... I was sure I had something," he muttered, searching frantically for something that clearly no longer existed. 

"Adam, calm down," he told him, walking over and embracing him in a solid bear hug. 

He stiffened instantly, and asked, "What the fuck are you doing?" 

"You looked like you needed a hug," Spike explained, and just as Reaper relaxed just a fraction, Spike transformed. 

Much to his embarrassment, he was, in effect, the Human version of a porcupine - under his skin was dozens upon dozens of bone hard black spikes (although they were made from the same type of enamel as teeth, and were not bone). ranging in size and density. The smallest, thinnest ones were on his hands, face, neck, and feet; the thickest, longest ones were centered around his chest and back. Those were as thick as a railroad spike (hence his code name) and eight inches long. They were now sticking through Reaper's back, and the blood dripping from them was patterning on the carpet, as if the roof had just sprung a leak and was letting the rain in. Reaper was making wet gasping noise, like he was trying to speak, but with spikes through his lungs and piercing his neck, talking was a bit of an impossibility. "Did you think we wouldn't find out?" Spike hissed savagely in his ear, feeling Reaper's warm blood soak through his shirt. "Did you think we'd let you do that to us?" 

It was amazing that Reaper was so arrogant he thought they wouldn't find out what he was willing to do to his supposed mutant brothers; it was equally amazing he thought they'd just lay back and take it. 

He retracted his spikes and let go of Reaper, who collapsed face first to the carpet, leaking blood out of dozens of holes in his newly frail body. The mundane Human Reaper didn't exist for much longer; he died with a wheeze so soft, Spike could barely hear it over the rain thundering on the roof. 

Spike gazed down at him, and almost felt sorry for him. Static had seemed crazy to outsource this to the rogue, crazy Wolverine, but obviously she had been smarter than all of them; he had been her partner often enough, they should have trusted she knew exactly what he could find a way to do. 

As he left the office, he made a mental note to get their Australian operatives on a pretty boy hunt, but with the caveat that he was a hostile on the "do not approach" list - how did you apprehend a reality warper? Especially one as powerful as Wolverine's "friend"? He knew the only way would be to fight fire with fire - one reality warper against another, but they didn't have a warper ... yet. 

But it was all just a matter of time, wasn't it? 

17 

    This was a weird bar. 

On the surface it seemed like a pleasant enough run down dive, but since when did places like these have Beth Orton on their jukebox? Bizarre - redneck alcoholics with a taste for sensitive singer - songwriters? Well, honestly, stranger things had happened. Rarely, but hey - it was a fucked up world. And at least it wasn't Jewel. 

He was on beer number three, trying to determine if that speck of cigarette ash on the bottom of the glass was on the inside or the outside, when the door opened for the first time in about twenty minutes, letting in a welcome blast of fresh, cool air. One of the two drunks at the opposite end of the bar - who had been becoming more loose and obnoxious with each passing second - attempted to whistle, failed, and just decided to catcall. "Hey baby, why don't cha come on over?" 

He knew by scent it was Jean before he looked towards her. She grimaced at him, possibly because she just realized she was the only woman in the place, save for the bartender, who looked like a former ( male ) Marine and had a knife tattoo on her neck. Logan knew if he could smell the difference, he may have initial mistaken her for a man. 

"Don't sit by him, baby, he's ugly," drunk guy said, and his two friends laughed. Suddenly drunk guy fell off his barstool and hit the wood paneled floor with a resounding thud, and his friends laughed so hard Logan expected them to piss themselves any second. 

As she sat on the stool beside him, he muttered, "Nice shove." 

"Who, me?" She lied, with an innocent smile. "I never touched him." 

"Uh huh." He glanced casually towards the door. "No One Eye?" 

"I didn't want a scene." 

He looked at his beer, and wondered if he should bother taking a sip or not. It wasn't very good to begin with. 

Jean was dressed conservatively, but casual for her - a two toned baseball t - shirt of heather grey with contrast blue sleeves and collar, and loose black cargo pants that worked with the worn sneakers she wore, but not with the long black trenchcoat she wore over it all; it was just too classy for this joint. But he bet she had been trying to dress to fit in. "Do you always hide in places this depressing?" 

"I'm not hidin'. And yeah." He shoved the beer aside, deciding the glass was way to dirty to drink from, even for him. "I told Xavier not to find me." 

"He didn't. Bob did." 

Logan groaned and hid his face in his hands. That was so much worse, on so many levels. "Tell me he's not here." 

"He's not. But he wanted me to tell you if you don't talk to me, you're going to have to talk to him." 

He dry washed his face and wondered if there was any way out of this. "Talk about what, exactly?" 

"He said you were thinking about going away for a while. As in years." 

"Yeah well, what's wrong with that?" 

"Logan - what happened?" 

He sighed heavily, and realized that Bob had trapped him. The bastard was just too good at it. "Nothin' - you know what happened. We tracked down Mr. Mutant Virus guy, Bob made him human and freed everyone he infected, whether they were aware of it or not. End of story." 

"No it's not," she insisted quietly. "Bob and Xavier both said a telepath was messing with your mind when they captured you, and Bob said you saw something at Base Cypher that disturbed you." 

"Yeah well, Bob should mind his own fuckin' business, shouldn't he?" He'd already paid for his drink, so there was nothing stopping him from getting up and storming out of the bar, which is exactly what he did. 

But of course Jean followed - what else was she going to do? "Hey baby, why's you got to go?" One of the drunk guys shouted as she slammed open the door, hot on his heels. 

"Since when does Bob ever mind his own business?" She pointed out, joining him in the parking lot. 

It was night, but not late; the stars will still coming out slowly, one by one, as if a veil was being pulled away in slow motion, and the sky was still more blue than black where it met the horizon. The temperature had dropped precipitously though - he could already see his breath reduced to white vapor before him. He turned to face her, wondering what he could possibly say that would make her go away. "Fine, never, but you don't need to join in, okay?" 

She shivered in the cold and drew the trenchcoat tightly around her, letting her long hair fall around her face to keep it warm. "I just don't want you to start hiding again." 

"Hiding again? What the fuck does that mean?" 

"Hiding from the world." 

He scoffed and shook his head. "I wish I could hide from the fucking world, Jean, but the hell of it is wherever I go, there it is." 

"You know what I -" 

Still shaking his head, he turned away. "I am not having this conversation." 

"Fifteen years, Logan. My god, you can't - " 

"Goodbye, Jean," he snapped, straddling his motorcycle. He just started it when she put one of her hands over his on the throttle, and said, "You know, if I don't want you to leave, you're not going anywhere." 

He glared up at her, thinking of and instantly discarding a million cutting things he could say to her. He might make her mad, but he wouldn't necessarily get her to go away. He threw up his hands in disgust, and said, "What? What do you want me to say? That I'll call every week? That'll I'll write when I get work?" 

"I want you to trust someone, Logan. Not because you have to, like Bob, but because you want to." 

He let his hands fall loosely to his thighs, and wondered if there'd ever be a day when he didn't regret not walking away from Xavier's when he had the chance."I have trusted people Jean, and they've trusted me. Do you know where these people are now? They're long dead, and sometimes I swear I can still smell their blood on my hands. Marcus almost joined them, so I'm done, I'm out. It's for everyone's good." 

"Marcus is fine." 

"Because of Bob, my own personal Jesus. I know he doesn't remember, but he took a fatal gunshot wound to the chest - the last time I saw him, he was half past dead. If you guys had shown up instead of Bob, he'd be rotting in the ground right now." 

She sighed as if he was being difficult, her breath a white cloud that diffused in the air before him. "But that didn't happen." 

"No, it did - Bob just reversed it. Don't split hairs with me." He remembered a dream he'd had just the other night, brief but weird: he dreamed of Elena, standing in an endless expanse of snow, holding a heavy black gun. He figured she was back only because he had been in Montana, however briefly, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if that was the only reason. She was looking flushed and shiny with sweat, in spite of shivering ( although he couldn't say if it was due to her illness, the cold, or both ),wearing the shirt of his that she died in. "Sometimes this is the only choice you can make," she said, and brought the gun barrel up to her head and pulled the trigger. He only woke up after he got to see her skull collapse inward, after the bullet blew out so much of her brain and cranium the skull lost all integrity. He loved his morbid mind - he had never wanted to see that. But he got her message loud and clear - he only wished that choice hadn't been taken away from him too. And he was glad Jean wasn't so powerful a telepath that she could see that image floating across his mind, or find the fact that last night he actually stood on a high bridge over the Saint Lawrence River and wondered if he could drown. He doubted it - did they drown him in that tank? Or was that a false memory? "I'm tired. Can't you people just let me have a few days by myself?" 

"A few days? Logan, it's been two weeks now." She gave him a concerned look, brow furrowing as her impatience gave way to concern. "You really lost track of time, didn't you?" 

"No - it was an expression." Wow, had it really been two weeks? All days and nights seemed to blur into one another after a while, especially if you were under no obligation to pay attention. "Look, I'm sure you mean well, but I need to be by myself right now." 

"You're always by yourself. Has it ever helped?" 

"Yeah, it has. Will you go now?" 


	9. Part 9

An El Camino pulled into the lot, the bass on its stereo so loud it was shaking the ground, and when the passenger door opened, the smoke that wafted out was far beyond plain old cigarettes. He could hear them laughing, and knew Stonerfest '03 had started without him - not that he could have gotten stoned, no matter the size of the joint. But wouldn't it have been nice? Would a little artificial, chemical happiness have been so bad for a while? 

He revved the bike, and suddenly Jean got on, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. "You don't want to talk here? Fine," she said into his ear, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Let's go elsewhere." 

He scowled at her in the rearview mirror, and asked, "What would happen if you accidentally fell off?" 

"I don't know. Have you ever gotten a telekinetic wedgie?" Her smile in the mirror was just slightly evil. 

"You've been around teenage boys too long," he grumbled. But hey, it was fair warning. 

He drove off, not completely sure where he was heading, just away. It felt good to have Jean lean into him as he drove far too fast and far too recklessly, but she didn't say a word. She didn't telepathically send him anything either - he didn't know if she couldn't, or if she just decided to let him burn off some steam this way. He didn't consider going back to his motel, mainly because he didn't want her to know where he was staying ( although Bob would probably tell her if she didn't know already ). There was a city park, and he diverted towards it - the main access road was theoretically chained off, but teenage partyers had already cut it, so it was no problem to drive through. 

He didn't know why he picked here; it was quiet ( except for the distant sounds of the partyers and midnight skateboarders ) and fairly deserted, and he had a feeling any eavesdroppers wouldn't be sober enough to recall what was said tomorrow. 

He parked the bike under the lowering branches of a huge horse chestnut tree, just short of an old fashioned wrought iron bench ( which, in a nod to the modern day, was bolted into the ground ). Jean seemed initially reluctant to let him go, but he figured that was because she was so cold and liked his body heat. This would have been a wonderful time for some innuendo, but he just wasn't in the mood for it now. 

Wow, what was wrong with him? 

He collapsed on one end of the bench, and stared out at the fake "Japanese garden" across the path, and beyond that he could see the fence and the dark monoliths of the skyscrapers on the city street; it seemed like another world. 

"This is nice," Jean said, pulling her trenchcoat tightly around her before she sat down, an arm's reach away from him, as if afraid to get too close. He didn't smell fear - anxiety, sure - but not fear. 

"All parks in North America look the same," he said dismissively. "The only differences is regional flora, and where they stick the duck pond." 

"How many parks have you seen?" 

"Too damn many." He watched shadows move across the squares of yellow light in the skyscraper directly across the street, people working late in their cubicle farms, leading sedate, normal, boring lives. He didn't envy them, but  then again didn't know how people could exist in such a fragile state. Bob was right - he wouldn't last five minutes as a normal. "What can I say to you that will make you go home and leave me the fuck alone?" 

"Tell me what happened." 

He chuckled bitterly, and slumped back against the bench, so he no longer had to hold his own head up anymore, and could look at the sky. The light pollution from the nearby buildings killed all but the brightest stars, and the moon was backlighting a cloud, making it look like a thick wad of grey velvet. "Nothing happened. I just finally got it, that's all." 

"Got what?" 

He was tempted to say "The clap", but he knew she wouldn't laugh. "That the man I'm searching for is dead. That Logan has been dead for a very long time." 

"No you're not." 

"Yes, I am. Whoever I was - whoever I used to be - got killed by those people, Jean. They filled my head full of so much shit the old me - the real me - doesn't exist anymore. What exists is the residue of their experiments, and nothing more." 

"That's not true. I know you may feel that way - " 

"No, Jean, I don't "feel that way"," he snapped, glaring at her. "I know it. I think I've known for a very long time, I just never had a name to put to it." 

"A name to what? A feeling?" 

He'd swear she sounded just a bit smug, even though she was careful to keep it from her expression. "What did you feel when you looked into my mind?" 

That seemed to throw her. She didn't like thinking about that, did she? Gee, he wondered why. "What do you mean?" 

"What I said." 

She hesitated and looked away, at the sad chrysanthemums in the faux Japanese garden. A breeze kicked up and made them nod their bright orange and yellow heads as if agreeing with him, and she sank deeper into her coat."I don't really know what you're looking for here, Logan. I felt pain, confusion, and a lot of fear." 

"Kinda like a dying man, huh?" 

She shot him a harsh glance for that, but quickly looked away. After a moment, where the wind brought in a faint peal of laughter from the drunken skateboarders, she said quietly, " I'm going to kill you all." 

"What?" 

"That's what you were telling yourself, in your mind. You were going to live through this, and you were going to kill them all. It was your mantra, going around in your head; you clung to it like a life preserver." 

Maybe that was true - honestly, if he tried to recall his thoughts beyond the pain, they got all muddled. He was probably insane from the pain and the helplessness of it all; he wasn't completely sure he wasn't still insane. "I think I drowned anyways. I just didn't realize it." 

"No, Logan, I don't believe that. But I can understand why you might feel that way." 

He laughed derisively, looking back up at the sky. It did seem smaller somehow - how weird was that? "Is this where you psychoanalyze me? Is this where you tell me my feelings are "normal" and "healthy"?" 

She scoffed faintly. "I'd never tell you they were healthy. But they are common to people who experience what you're experiencing." 

"A lot of people get forced surgery?" 

She grimaced. "No, or at least I hope not. A lot of torture victims have post traumatic stress disorder." 

He stared at her, just to make sure she wasn't kidding. "I don't have a fucking disorder." 

She looked at him, a sort of pained sympathy in her eyes that he instantly abhorred. "I know you don't want to hear it, but - " 

"You're right, I don't, so shut the fuck up." 

"Don't you ever speak to me that way," she hissed, eyes narrowing to angry slits. 

He stared at her, and realized two things - he just wanted to hurt everybody. It didn't matter who or what they were, he just wanted to spread the wealth of this pain around. And he then realized it was always a tactical error to piss off a telekinetic. "Sorry," he muttered reluctantly, looking off into the heart of the park. Very briefly, he felt two sets of eyes on them, and knew there were a couple of guys scoping them out for a possible mugging or even more. He hoped they brought it on; it would help to burn off some more steam. 

He thought maybe she was giving him the silent treatment ( good ), but after a minute, she said, "Everything's screwed up, isn't it?" 

"Wanna be more specific?" 

She sighed heavily. "Life. Nothing seems to be right anymore." 

"Are you proposin' a murder - suicide pact?" 

She glared at him, lips thinning to a grim line. "That isn't funny." 

He shrugged - couldn't make everyone happy. "Since when is anything in life right? It's always been a fucking mess." 

"It isn't always, Logan. Sometimes it's pretty good. Surely there have been times in your life when you've been happy." 

"I wouldn't know." 

She elbowed him gently in the arm. "Come on. You can't tell me you don't recall one time in the past fifteen years that you were simply happy." 

He thought about that for a moment. "Does sex count?" 

She frowned at him, but looked away as it turned into a smile. "You're not going to take this seriously, are you?" 

"I'm very serious about sex." 

"All men are." 

A potential joke about Scott occurred to him, but he never even wanted to think about Cyclops having sex. He couldn't imagine that he'd ever loosened up enough to do such a thing, which he probably thought of as disgusting anyways. He just didn't get guys like him. 

Jean suddenly said, as if it was somehow related to the topic, "Do you think Sloane looked that much like me?" 

That briefly threw him. What was the connection there?"Not really. I mean, beyond being tall, elegant redheads, I don't think you had that much in common." Especially considering Jean's idea of flirting was lingering stares. If that memory could be trusted, Sloane's idea of flirting was taking off her clothes and asking him if he wanted to go to bed. Big world of difference there. 

"Elegant?" She repeated, smiling warmly at him. 

He gave her a small smile, the best he could muster under the circumstances. "Even in t - shirts and sneakers. It must be a gift." 

It was the right thing to say. She looked very pleased, like a cat who had just gotten into the cream. Even at his lowest he could still schmooze the ladies, and wasn't that a handy talent to have? "Thank you," she said. "But don't think I haven't noticed we've strayed far away from the topic at hand." 

"I'd rather talk about sex," he replied, giving her a sly smile. 

She smiled back at him, and he knew she was tempted to do the same thing - maybe not limited to talk. "Maybe later." Her expression sobered. "If you won't come back to Westchester with me, can you at least promise me you won't do something stupid?" 

"Define stupid." 

"Deliberately look for trouble, or try and hurt yourself." 

He scoffed, not sure if he should be touched or angry. "I don't look for trouble, it comes for me. And hurt myself - like I can really hurt myself." 

"You can. In fact, you once said you get hurt a lot, it just doesn't stick." 

"And that's all that matters, doesn't it?" 

"No, it's not. Just because you can tolerate a great deal of pain doesn't mean you should." 

"I really don't like it, you know - I'm not a sado - masochist." 

"I know. So what are you punishing yourself for?" 

He scowled at her, almost asking what the hell that was supposed to mean, but he knew, didn't he? Self - flagellation at its most literal, whether it was the simple, ordinary pain of popping his claws, or letting big drunk guys wail on him until he got bored. "I'm a killer," he told her simply, surprised she hadn't figured it out before now. "I was made to hurt people. And I'm very, very good at it. Throw me in front of something that supposedly can't be hurt and I will - given enough time - figure out a way to hurt it. That's why Static tried to hand Reaper over to me." 

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again and resumed staring at the chrysanthemums. What could she say? He wasn't a killer all the time? He wasn't a machine when they both knew damn well he was the closest thing to a cyborg in existence right now? What she didn't know was he now had a name for himself - Weapon X. Not a person - a thing. That felt so much like truth he couldn't believe he hadn't figured that out before. The men who had been watching had left, maybe they had heard him say he was a killer, and that was disappointing. Far be it from him to discourage anyone from taking him on. 

After a long minute of silence, she said, "It doesn't matter what you did, or what they made you do. That doesn't define you, and doesn't make you what you are. The Logan I know is not a killer, and not the residue of mind control experiments. The one I know is capable of great acts of compassion as well as great acts of cruelty; he's a person trying to regain his sense of equilibrium. If you were really as bad as you think you were, you couldn't ever be around people." 

"I shouldn't be." 

"You're wrong. We need you as much as you need us." 

He smirked bitterly at the side of her face; she was resolutely not looking at him. "Do you? And why do you think I need you?" 

She finally looked at him, meeting his eyes fearlessly. "We do. You're an intelligent man, resourceful, brave - who doesn't need someone like that? And we offer you stability, and an occasional opportunity to kick some ass - are you going to deny that you like that?" 

He grinned at her, wondering what she had chose not to say. Should he read something into that? "No. I like you too." 

She smiled and glanced down at her shoes. Did her skin flush slightly? "You have your moments," she told him. 

Maybe this proved he was feeling reckless, or simply horny; he had no idea. Sometimes they were the same thing. "Why don't we go get a bottle of wine, go back to my room, and make love? Get the sexual tension out of the way." 

She looked at him askance, feigning surprise, but she didn't quite manage it. "I'm engaged." That wasn't a no, and light years away from a slap. 

"No one ever has to know." 

"We'd know." 

"You'd be surprised at the amount of secrets I'm keeping." 

She finally faced him again, her hazel eyes sparkling with curiosity and mirth. "No, I don't think I would. You're a man of mystery." 

"I don't have to be." 

Their eyes locked and held, and he was pretty sure he had her this time; oddly enough, he wasn't sure how he felt about that. But she tore her gaze away, lips curving up, and said, in that "let him down gently" tone of voice, "Logan - " 

"I'll give you a raincheck," he interrupted, only partially joking. "But it won't be good for long." 

"I'll keep that in mind," she said, still smiling. But after a long pause, she suddenly said, "Would it make you come back with me?" 

"I don't know." 

She nodded, appreciating his honesty if nothing else. She stood up, digging her hands nervously in the pockets of her coat, and she said, "You know, you scare the hell out of me sometimes, but I miss you when you're gone." 

"You're probably the only one." 

"I doubt it." 

"I don't." He levered himself up from the bench, and waited to see what she would do, but as it turned out, she did nothing - she didn't even take a step back. He remembered he owed her a kiss from when Scott  walked in on them in the computer room, and he decided to give it to her. 

She resisted for one second in total, and then kissed him in return, wrapping her arms around him as he slipped his arms beneath her coat. She was warmer than he expected, especially when he slid his hands beneath her shirt and up her back. She seemed to shiver, even though he knew his hands weren't cold; maybe it was just the skin on skin contact. The last time they really had any, he had her by the throat, with one of his fists pressed to her head. Neither of them actually enjoyed that. 

He wanted to forget, and he knew she was telepathic - not as powerful as Xavier, but she could make him forget. And if he couldn't get her to take it away, at least he could lose himself in her body for a while. 

She ran a hand up to the back of his neck as she kissed him hard enough that he could feel his lips attempting to bruise ( it wasn't like they could ); he wondered if Scott really was as passionless and dead as he seemed. Wow - it was amazing Jean hadn't completely lost her mind. 

Then again, maybe she had. Suddenly she seemed to change her mind, and moved her hands to his shoulders, pushing him away. He would have been frustrated if it wasn't so predictable. But he didn't resist, because she was a telekinetic, and because part of him had expected her to chicken out. This would certainly make her leave, wouldn't it? She couldn't trust herself around him - or maybe it was just him she couldn't trust. As he pulled away, he let his hands slide over the curve of her hips, just above the waistline of her pants, and he thought it was probably an odd part of a woman to like. But he liked most of the parts, so it didn't really bother him. 

She shook her head and brought a hand up to her mouth, as if she was afraid to even speak at this point. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "You don't have to go," he told her, giving her one last chance. He was getting tired of the waiting game with her - they were adults, so what was the problem? If she was all that happy with Scott, she wouldn't give him a second glance. 

She glanced at him reluctantly, now taking a step back. She seemed ashamed, and a small flare of anger surged inside his mind as he realized she probably thought she was better than him, ergo too damn good for him. The fact that most people were cut his anger a bit. "This would never work between us," she said, all but confirming his suspicions. 

"I know. Does it matter?" Sometimes things were just chemical; they just happened, even if it didn't seem particularly logical. But he knew she was trying to reason this out, and that was a recipe for disaster. 

She glanced down at the cement path, and shook her head. "I don't know. I just can't do this, Logan." 

"But you want to." He knew she did, as much as he did. He didn't know who she was fooling. No, he did - she was trying to fool herself for some goddamn reason. 

She shook her head again, and very reluctantly looked him in the eyes. She seemed almost melancholy about it, instantly regretful of a thing she hadn't quite done yet. "I don't know what I want." 

"Do you know what you don't want? 'Cause that's a place to start." 

She reached out and hesitated before deciding to touch his arm. A safe area, he supposed. "Come back to us, Logan." 

"When I'm ready," he replied, the vaguest answer possible. 

But she must have been rattled because she just nodded, and turned down the path. 

"I think I'll have to give you a lift back," he pointed out. "It's a long walk." 

She paused, and looked around as if waking up from a dream. "Oh. I guess you're right." 

"You trust me?" He wondered. 

She looked back at him and smiled wanly. "It's not you I don't trust." 

Strangely enough, he knew that feeling quite well. But Jean's reasons for mistrusting herself were minor compared to his reasons for distrusting himself  - once you were someone's programmed assassin, could you ever trust anything you felt or thought or did or remembered? 

He led the way back to the motorcycle, and wondered if he'd ever trust himself again. 

The End 


End file.
